


1000 Forms of Fear

by jenaicompris



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Blood Magic, Dark Solas, F/F, F/M, Gen, Rivalmance, Snippets, lots of love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-19 12:00:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3609351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenaicompris/pseuds/jenaicompris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A total of twelve little stories for some options of love in the games. Best paired with Sia's album by the same name and a nice glass of wine. In order of the songs they were inspired by. Some have sex, some do not. Probably all of them will. No Adaar, which is a major oversight. Contains dark!Solas (#10), one tale of underage love (#7), and probably some other random stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chandelier

**Author's Note:**

> Female Hawke/Varric love. Didn't start out as love but Varric kind of did what he wanted to and this happened.

Hawke had taken a steady string of lovers over the course of the day, from early in the morning until far after the sun set. When she was finally bored, she creaked her way down the stairs of the Hanged Man and settled gingerly into a chair at one of the few unused tables. She was already relatively drunk as with those lovers came much alcohol. She ordered more.

She settled in with a mug of the strongest stuff the Hanged Man had to offer and ran a hand over her hair, still wet from a bath not ten minutes previous, feeling nearly every set of eyes in the place on her. Most of them had been on more of her during the previous hours in the day but it didn’t bother her. Or at least it didn’t look like it did.

“Hawke.”

She ignored the voice, continuing to stare into the dark amber liquid in the depths of her mug.

“Hawke.”

Still, she didn’t move.

“ _Hawke_.”

With one hand around the outside of her drink, she tipped back what remained and swallowed it in one gulp before she turned her gray-blue eyes to Varric.

“Maker, woman, what-” he realized belatedly that that line of questioning wouldn’t do anyone any good.

“What, Varric?”

“You shouldn’t drink alone.”

“I haven’t been.”

“I know,” he frowned before waving over a barmaid and ordering two more mugs. Hawke downed it nearly immediately, at which point the girl came back with another.

Varric wasn’t sure what to say; ‘how are you doing’, ‘what’s wrong’, or ‘what in the Maker’s name do you think you’re doing’ didn’t seem to be the right way to start conversation. Hawke had always been a fan of dalliances, of which Varric spoke little, but she had never taken a full day to lay on her back (or utilize many other positions, about which Varric knew little) and drown her sorrows in alcohol. Not even after Bethany was taken to the Circle.

“Keep them coming,” Hawke winked at the barmaid, smacking her backside with one hand and offering her too much in gold with the other. The girl, a pert little blonde, offered a giggle and a smile in response and the alcohol never stopped flowing.

“What are you doing....uhh, with your night?”

“Holding on,” she responded with a cracked smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “And drinking. Heavily. What about you?”

“Watching you drink,” he responded with a smile of his own and took a swig of his ale.

“Shots!” Hawke shouted, standing swiftly and sweeping her arms out. She nearly topped her mug, as she swept her hands while she was standing, but the dwarf was able to catch it. “Shots for everyone. Whatever they don’t want, give to me.”

Hawke ended up with three lined up in front of her while Varric had one and the rest of the bar, minus two of the patrons, had their own.

“To the Hanged Man!” Hawke crowed before she swallowed her first, then second, and final shot all in a row before she collapsed back in her chair and began to nurse her ale.

“You’re going to end up with your head in a privy if you aren’t careful,” Varric muttered.

“Or your lap, if you’re nice,” Hawke responded, a cocky grin tugging at her split lower lip.

“You’re drunk.”

“Can I touch it?”

Varric’s eyes nearly bulged from his head and he took a drink swiftly to avoid answering.

“Your chest hair, you big lummox,” she rolled her eyes, fingers splayed out over the wood of the table as if itching to do so.

Varric snorted, half in relief and half in surprise before he relented. “Not here.”

“Are you inviting me your rooms, good sir?” she asked, batting her eyelashes in an overly flirtatious way that would’ve had Varric laughing if he didn’t think she was drunkenly serious.

“Helga,” Varric called to the barmaid and slipped another gold piece into her hand, “keep it coming in my room.” He whispered then, mouth close to her ear, “Water in a while for her. And some food later, if you don’t mind.”

The girl nodded – or woman, as she was hardly young enough to be considered a girl any longer – and smiled before she moved away. Hawke and Varric took what remained of their ales up to his rooms and settled into the table in his room.

“I want a bath,” Hawke pouted as she saw Varric’s tub in the far corner of the room, half hidden behind a dressing screen.

“Do you really want a bath or are you just trying to get naked?”

“I don’t need a reason to get naked,” she responded, hands moving to the belt on her noblewoman’s robe.

“Hawke, stop.”

“Why?” she frowned, hands tugging and letting it hang half open. It allowed for a peek at the taught stomach of a woman who spent too much time in battle and the dip between her heavy breasts. Her breeches came up to her belly button, cutting off some of the skin that would otherwise be visible. “Have something against humans?”

“In general?” Varric asked with a choked chuckle, trying to move the conversation in another direction. Hawke’s hands lifted to her hips, pushing the robe more of out of the way and exposing more of her torso. The fabric caught on her breasts, curtaining the fabric and leaving little – but some – to the imagination. “Hawke, sit down and drink your ale.”

“Only if you order me a bath,” she smirked, leaning over. The robe freed itself, the plush lining dropping halfway over each breast almost perfectly, allowing more skin and a little nipple to peek out on either. Although Hawke didn’t notice, Varric swallowed a little more noticeably before averting his gaze.

“Fine. Just sit down. I’ll be right back.” Before he stood, he took down the rest of his mug. He would need a _lot_ more alcohol to deal with this. But he would. Her mother had just been murdered. He would do whatever she needed to bring her back to the land of the living. If it meant being teased mercilessly, he would do it. It didn’t matter if she had no idea what it was doing to him. It didn’t matter if she never did, or even if she didn’t remember the next day. All that mattered was that she was okay again.

When Varric returned, Helga getting some of the other workers to start heating the water for the bath, Hawke was nowhere to be seen. He may or may not have taken a little longer as he was throwing back a few more shots in an attempt to at least partially catch up to his charge for the evening.

When he found her, he half-wished he hadn’t.

“I thought you said you’d sit down if I got your bath organized,” he groaned, eyes averted to the ceiling as Hawke lay, splayed across his bed in the nude.

“I lied,” she responded wistfully, shifting onto her elbows to look up at him. “What? Don’t like the view?”

“Hawke,” he huffed, glancing at her face. “You’re not thinking straight.”

“Sure, there were a few women but that doesn’t mean I don’t like _you_ , Varric,” she cracked a grin and sat up, shifting to the edge of the bed. She sat with her legs open, not a care in the world as Varric did everything he could to avoid looking below her neck.  “Come here.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Hawke.”

“You promised I could,” she pouted, reaching her hand out and contracting her fingers as if she was running them through his chest hair. “Come on.”

“Will you put some clothes on?”

“Maybe.”

The rogue groaned and stepped forward, a man defeated, until Hawke’s fingers slid across the open section of his shirt and buried themselves into the bared golden curls across his barrel of a chest.

She purred and before he knew what was happening, her eyes were half-lidded and her legs and hooked behind his back, tugging him closer to her. With her seated on his low bed, Varric’s face was on the same level as Hawke’s. Her hand that was not in his chest hair found its way into the hair on his head.

“Hawke, don’t-“

“Don’t say no, Varric.” Hawke’s voice was quiet and soft, half-broken like the look in her eyes. She was drunk and he was working on it. “ _Please._ ”

That’s what broke him. He had never honestly believed he would be put into such a situation, never honestly believed that any part of Hawke would want any part of him outside of the banter and friendship that they carried on. Sure, part of him _thought_ about it but no part of him _believed_ there was any possibility. She wasn’t his type – he was hers, only insomuch that she didn’t really have one. At all. Even sort of.

“They’re…bringing the bathwater,” he responded, his voice catching as the hand that had been on his chest trailed its way to the belt at his hips.

“Let them,” she murmured, fingers curling into the leather and using it to tug him closer.

It was a bad idea and Varric knew it. He knew it when her lips crashed into his and she tasted like a brewery, he knew it when she stripped him down to nothing. He knew it when the women came in with the bathwater, gasped before dumping the water where they were told to and scurried out again. He knew it when his face was buried between her glorious tits and then again between her equally glorious thighs. He knew it when she returned the favor, his head thrown back and his golden hair disheveled. It almost felt wrong, taking so much pleasure from a broken woman. But she _wanted it_. She practically took it all herself, begging him to do things to her that he had only ever dreamt about.

When they were both spent, they drank more.  Hawke slid into the bath water, now rather chilly, and drank more, lolling in it until she was shivering and he insisted that she remove herself. They lounged in the bed and went at each other again, slow this time. Like making love, he thought briefly before he shook his head and focused on her rather than his own feelings.

The next morning, the sun streaming through the window and rudely awakening Hawke, she awoke in Varric’s bed.

She lay, blinking into the canopy with a pounding in her head and a throbbing between her legs. In fact, most of her body ached. She groaned, throwing her arm over her eyes. It as in that moment she realized that she was not only in Varric’s bed but she was also quite starkly naked.

The day previous, much like the one before that, Hawke could barely remember. She sighed heavily and tugged on the blanket, shifting onto her side and facing her back to the room as she draped the covers over her head and tried to fall asleep again.

“What the ever loving hell did I do,” she hissed, curling in on herself and swallowing the tears before they had a chance to reach her cheeks.

Varric returned to his rooms some time that afternoon, deciding that it was best to leave Hawke to do whatever it was she needed to do when she woke up. When he found her, she was seated with a steaming cup of what passed as caffe in the Hanged Man, draped in nothing but Varric’s blankets at his table.

When she looked up at him, her eyes were red-rimmed and her face was streaked in tears. Her shoulders were drooped with the heaviness of the world and Varric’s heart splintered a little at the site.

“Hawke?” he frowned, taking a tentative stop towards her.

“Please tell me…” she choked on a sob, something Varric never expected from her, and turned her face away from him for a moment. She sniffled, sighed and turned her face back to him. “…it’s okay.”

He let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and moved a little closer, setting Bianca down on the table. He didn’t move to her all the way, standing halfway between the end of the table and the chair she sat in.

“Does that mean you remember?”

“It took the better part of the morning,” she sighed again, not looking at him. She held the porcelain mug between both of her hands, staring down into the dark liquid. “There’s a lot I wish I could forget,” Varric felt a pang at that and winced, which she didn’t see, “…but not you. Is that… have I ruined everything?”

He didn’t quite know how to respond to that except to close the distance between them and slide his thick fingers beneath her chin, tilting her face towards him. “No, Hawke. Not if you don’t regret it.”

“You…you mean you don’t? It wasn’t just-“

Instead of trying to explain, instead of trying to assuage her fears – Varric leaned his face closer, his hand sliding from her chin into her hair to guide her mouth to his. The kiss was slow and gentle, Varric’s stubble scratching deliciously against Hawke’s wet cheeks.

When the kiss broke, Hawke blinked at his yellow-amber eyes. “Does…does your door lock?”

Varric threw his head back and laughed as Hawke grinned at him, the first sincere smile she had on her face since the moment her mother collapsed in her arms two days ago.

“You know, Hawke,” Varric murmured against the taught skin of her stomach, his would-be beard reddening the light colored skin there as his jaw moved and flexed, “…you’re my first.”

Hawke spluttered, before she shifted her hand to run through his hair. “Hope it was memorable”

“First human, that is. And I think we’ll need a few more thousand rounds before any decisions can be made.”


	2. Big Girls Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall/badass!Cadash love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No sex in this chapter but some swearing.

Inquisitor Cadash sighed heavily into the silence of her empty bedroom, chilled to the bone by the open balcony doors but no longer having the energy to move to them and close off the rest of the world. Besides, she needed the cold to remind her she was still alive.

She had had one glorious night with the man she believed she loved before he up and disappeared on her. She had spent many favors to remove him from Orlais into the custody of the Inquisition and he had the audacity to question her decision.

Stone take him.

She didn’t have time to care about him or how he felt. She didn’t have the energy either.

It wasn’t that his name was different. Hell, it wasn’t even what he had done.

It was that he had _lied_.

She was a criminal at heart; born and bred. She held no shame for her past nor for the way she carried herself or took care of the Inquisition. Some people took issue with her dark approach to certain activities, but Blackwall never had. Thom. Whatever. Names meant little to her; Cadash had once been a great warrior house, since fallen from grace and dragging with it her entire potential. Names meant much to others but not to her.

Now she was the Herald of some ridiculous human church and the leader of a massive, well, inquisition into the reason why their Divine had died. She did what she needed to and got the job done. Up until recently, she had been doing it with him at her side.

She saw the way others looked at her after her decision and, more than that, the way they looked at him. It wasn’t the same; any friendships that he had managed to create had gone bad. It was probably a worse fate to drag him back to Skyhold than it would have been to let him hang, at least for him.

She couldn’t do it. As hardened as her heart was, the idea of letting him dance from the hang man’s noose didn’t sit well with her.

She loved him. As much as she hated him for what he did, she loved him more than she knew she had the capability to do so.

The fireplace required stoking but she couldn’t convince herself to stand. The candles were burning low and she knew she should replace them or put them out, but the most she could do was stare at the cracked hands in her lap, wondering how she had gotten there.

A knock sounded at the door, followed by tentative but heavy footsteps.

“My…my lady?”

The voice was familiar. Too familiar. She should have been expecting it; she had sent for him but somehow the appearance of his head over the edge of the bannisters still took her by surprise.

She lifted her head and caught his eyes, saw the desperation, sadness, and defeat in the lines on his face.

“I couldn’t…Did you truly send for me?”

She nodded curtly, didn’t stand.

“To what end?”

“My fire needs another log,” she responded, as if that was the sole purpose of calling him to the room. “And my candles are nearly out.”

He looked taken aback by the sort-of order but took to taking care of what she mentioned. He worked in silence and Cadash watched him from her oversized bed. Watched his shoulders work beneath the thick over-shirt he wore to keep out the bitter cold of the night high in the mountains.

“There’s wine,” she finally said after he had finished replacing the last candle. She gestured with one hand towards a table near the balcony. There were two long-stemmed glassed and a bottle in a bucket full of melting ice.

He poured one glass and brought it to her, standing awkwardly as far away as he could.

“I meant for you to take one also,” she spoke, not looking at him as she lifted the glass to her lips.

He hesitated a moment, eyes glancing towards the stairway down and out before he gave in and returned to the table to pour his own glass. He returned to stand at a distance, one arm behind his back and the other one ending in a wine glass.

The remained in silence, the only sound the wind outside and the fire crackling within, the occasional sip of wine breaking up the monotony.

“Is there-”

“I haven’t dismissed you yet,” she cut him off, shifting dark eyes towards his. “You owe me this much.”

He did not try to speak again, not until she instigated with a question.

“Why?” she asked, clenching her jaw. She did not expect the tears.

“It was an-”

“Not that, you blighted moron,” she growled, downing the glass and holding it out to him without looking. She waited for him to take it, watched his feet as he moved to get more for her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I…I meant to,” he sighed heavily after pouring the wine. He turned and moved back to her, offering the glass with a small bow before resuming his previous position on the edge of her periphery. “When you found the Warden Constable’s badge. But I…oh, Maker, I was _afraid_.”

“Of what?”

“What you would think of me.”

Cadash snorted derisively, taking a sip of her wine before swirling it a little in her glass and taking another. She didn’t know the purpose of swirling it but saw Josephine, Leliana, and Madame de Fer do it on more than one occasion. She had picked up the habit before going to the Winter Palace and continued it for whatever reason. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What-”

“What you did. I mean, it does but it doesn’t. Not to me. I have done more than my fair share of terrible things and you know about every single one of them,” she frowned deeply, more at the tears that had started falling unbidden than the words that she spoke. She swiped furiously at her cheeks and turned her face away, speaking towards the wall behind her bed. “But you couldn’t trust me.”

“It…my lady, it was not you that I didn’t trust.”

“Clearly,” she huffed, clenching her jaw before relaxing and drinking more of her wine. “I trusted you with every secret of my past, everything that could _ruin_ the Inquisition. More than that, I trusted you with my…” she paused, hating how pathetic it sounded but not knowing what else to say, “…heart. Now what am I supposed to do?”

He took a sputtering step forward but didn’t come any closer. She could hear the defeat, the sorrow in his voice and she hated him for it. “I won’t ask you to forgive me.”

“Good, because I don’t know if I can. I can forgive what you did to those men, to that family. But I do not know if I can forgive what you did to me.” She stopped, downing her wine glass and setting it gently atop her bedside table. She stood slowly, smoothing down the front of her linen tunic and breeches before she turned to him. The tears were prickling her brown eyes again and she resisted the urge to fidget with her deep red hair. Instead she stood before him, hands useless at her sides. “Tell me something, Blackwall. _Thom_.”

“Yes?”

“Did you ever really love me?” Her breath caught on the question and despite herself the tears began to flow again. She choked on the word ‘love’ and hated herself for it.

He cringed at the question, so much so that he nearly shattered the glass in his hand. Following suit, he downed the remainder of his wine and set it aside as quickly as he could. He turned back to her, his face drawn. “I do. Which is why-”

“Which is why _nothing_ ,” she spat, eyes narrowed in anger. “How can you tell me you love me when you couldn’t even tell me _who you are_?”

“It’s _because_ I love you that I didn’t tell you,” he groaned, taking a halting step forward. Cadash didn’t move. “I wanted you to love me back, despite my better judgment. And I didn’t believe you could love Thom Rainier. I had already been Blackwall for so long.”

“So you manipulated me?” she hissed, taking a step towards him with an accusatory gesture of her hand.

“I…not intentionally but I suppose you’re right. My lady…” he sighed, shoulders drooping further if it was even physically possible. “It was never my intention to hurt you.”

“Funny, that,” she snorted, wiping at her cheeks to banish the accursed tears.  

“I…I should go,” he frowned, shifting his foot back.

“You will do no such thing,” she took a step forward to follow him, and then another. She brought herself to stand in front of him faster than he could think and her hand was on his elbow. “If you ever leave me again, whoever the fuck you are, you will not be so lucky a second time.”

He stiffened at her touch, eyes wide as he took in the meaning of her words. He turned to face her completely; unable to comprehend what was happening. “Does that…my lady, forgive me, but are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I am offering myself to you again, to whoever this man is, but on the condition that if you hurt me again I may very well kill you.”

And he knew, without a doubt, that she wasn’t joking. And he knew, too, that without a doubt he didn’t give a damn.

She cried that night, while they made love. She cried too when he held her as she drifted off to sleep. After that night, however, Thom Rainier or Blackwall or whoever the hell he was never made her cry again. Except the day he died, many years later. And if he wasn’t already dead, she would have killed him herself.


	3. Burn the Pages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen/fem!MageTrevelyan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the feels, none of the sex. It'll happen eventually, I swear. Probably next chapter, definitely the chapter after that. And after that. And after that.

The Commander had asked her to come to his office; this was not an altogether odd request. However, he had asked her specifically after a meeting at the War Table rather than sending messenger at some point during the day. He had seemed hurried and harried. Stilted and…well, _off_.

The youngest Trevelyan knew that Cullen had been a templar in a previous life and knew, too, what that meant besides the fact that he should want nothing to do with her. They had shared secret glances and more than one chess game but that was all. She hoped, deep down, for more but expected nothing from him. He was an ex-templar and she was an, for all intents and purposes, apostate mage. Star-crossed lovers from the first.

She would have been lying if she at any point said that she didn’t hope against hope that he was calling him to her office to ravage her, to tell her of his undying love and to whisk her away to a secret wedding for just the two of them.

What she found instead was a very agitated Cullen doused sweat, fingers clenching the lip of his desk so hard she was surprised that he hadn’t splintered the wood. In front of him sat a box – but not for long. Without lifting his head, his hand shifted to the box lightning-fast and flung it at the wall, narrowly missing her head.

“Well hello to you too,” she smiled wanly, lyrium invading her nostrils almost immediately. She could taste it on her tongue as she shifted a piece of broken glass away from the doorway with her boot-covered toe.

“Oh, Maker’s breath, forgive me. I didn’t hear you enter,” he frowned, lifting a hand to rub his forehead.

She moved closer into the room, closing the door behind her. “You don’t have anything to apologize for – unless you were aiming at me, in which case you should apologize for your aim.”

He smiled, only barely, before a grimace overtook him and he all but collapsed. Although she had never been the fastest, she was at his side in an instant and lifting his arm over her thin shoulders. “Commander, talk to me.”

She helped him shift over to his massive chair, sliding him into it. He winced, a gloved hand over his chest.

“I told you about the Ferelden Circle, about Kirkwall. You know…you must know about templars and lyrium.”

She nodded a little, moving back to lean against the side of his desk with her hands on either side of her hips. She hesitated briefly before she moved away from him towards a table in the corner that held a metal pitcher with wooden cups. She poured water for him, dipping her finger into the mug and spreading the tiniest bit of cold magic into it before she brought it to him. His hand shook too desperately to take the cup from her so she lifted it slowly, pressing it gently to his lips. He took a sip before she pulled it back, setting it down on the desk and resuming her previous position.

“I did not…I did not want this to interfere,” he groaned, resting his head back against the chair. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“I believe you, Commander,” she soothed, extending a hand to smooth one of his fur pauldrons. “Let me help you.”

He clenched his jaw as another wave hit him, his iron-clad hand gripping the chair arm so tightly she could hear it crack.  “What is there to…be…done…?”

“Once you’re steady enough to climb the ladder to your loft, we’ll go from there. In the meantime, try and talk to me. Tell me about what has happened to you. I know you’ve told me before, tell me _again_. Talking can help ease one’s mind. Tell me what it feels like, what hurts. Just…talk.”

It took some doing; he was easily convinced by her soft voice but the moments of pain ebbed and flowed so dramatically that there were moments it was all he could not to scream.

The sun was nearly set by the time he could stand on his own, let alone climb to the space that housed his bed. She set him on his bed to go back down the ladder and precariously carry up the jug and an empty cup, which she set on the small table by his bed.

“We’ll get you out of that armor and I’ll see what I can do,” she smiled a little, blush creeping into her cheeks just as fast as his.

“I don’t…”

“Commander, please. Let me do this for you. It’s not like you’re naked under all that,” she rolled her eyes a little, trying to make light of the situation as he grimaced in pain again.

After finally relenting, Cullen didn’t do much of the removing. She wasn’t all that familiar with armor, especially not heavy armor, but she finally managed to remove every piece of metal from him. He was left in a plain tunic and breeches, all but drenched in sweat from the lyrium withdrawals. Without a second thought, she tore off a piece at the bottom of her dress and poured a smidgen of the water onto it before holding it in her hand and cooling it with more cold magic.

“Lie down,” she gestured towards his bed and he didn’t have the energy to argue, despite the fact that he had initially protested when she began to tear her dress. He sprawled on his back, arms tight against his side. She sat sideways on the bed facing his head, left leg bent and atop the mattress as she leaned over him and pressed the compress to his forehead. “I’m going to use some healing magic on you, nothing major. I want you to keep talking. Start over if you have to. I want you to talk until your throat is sore. Then I’ll heal it and we can start over.”

Cullen popped one eye open to look up at her and couldn’t keep the smile off of his flushed face. With a heavy sigh, he closed his eye again and began to speak in a low, rumbling voice about the reason he joined the templars, how he didn’t talk to his family, how he had fallen for a mage a the Circle, and the terrible things he had seen when the blood mages took over and the Tower was filled with abominations.

While he spoke, she drifted her hands lightly over practically every inch of him, half-massaging and half-magicking the pain away as best as she knew how. Periodically she would refresh the damp cloth on his forehead.

At one point, after his third or fourth retelling, he stopped and sat up a little. “You can’t honestly want to hear this again.”

“Aside from the fact that I could listen to you talk for days,” she smiled a little shyly, gently pushing his shoulder so that he would lie back, “it isn’t about me. Part of this reaction of yours, I believe, is a sickness brought on by all of the pain and worry inside of you. Certainly lyrium withdrawal all on its own is a serious thing but there’s more than that with you, Culle-…Commander.”

His hand jerked a little, covering hers. “You can call me Cullen, Inquisitor.”

“Eleanor,” she corrected him, color in her cheeks. “Well, _Cullen_. The point of me listening to you is so that your past doesn’t have the same power over you anymore. You deserve happiness.”

“I…” he sucked in a deep breath and sat up again, the cold towel falling from his forehead and somewhere near his hand. His face darkened a little and he curled in, wrapping his muscled arms around his knees as his back curved. “It isn’t about my happiness. It’s about what’s best for the Inquisition. I can’t give less to the Inquisition than I did to the Chantry.”

The more he spoke, the angrier he sounded. Eleanor stood from the bed and, for a moment, he thought she was leaving him. Giving up.

But she moved to the end of the bed and crawled on, moving to position herself at his feet. She put her hands over his forearms atop his knees and leaned in close, face inches from his. “It _is_ about your happiness, Cullen. And you aren’t giving less; you’re giving you. You always give you. And _you_ are what is important. If you’re unhappy or in pain, that’s our problem. Not whether or not you’re taking lyrium.”

“But the memories, I can’t…they have always been awful. If they are worse…”

“Cullen,” she shifted her hands, sliding them onto either side of his stubbly face. “Regardless of the memories, regardless of the Inquisition, regardless of _everything_ other than what is in your heart – do you want to take the lyrium or not?”

He let out a heavy sigh, body tense as he let his head slide, his forehead resting against his arms and her hands now shifted to the sleeves of his shirt. After a long moment he tilted his head back, tears threatening to fall but not daring to actually follow through with it. “No. No, I don’t.”

“Then we will make new memories,” she breathed, shifting a hand to run back through his hair. He shivered at her touch, craning his head towards her hand. “And when you are plagued with the old ones, you will call for me. If I’m not in Skyhold, you will write them down. And when I come back, we’ll read them. Then we’ll burn them. And the pain? I will exhaust myself aiding you, if it brings you respite.” She slid her hand from him and on the way back to her side, he caught it. He sat up, straightening his back and his feet slid beneath her knees upon which she sat. “I…” she started, looking away for a moment before swallowing her fear and turning back to look at him, “I won’t lose you, Cullen. Not for anything.”

“Do you…” he started before a hit of pain shook his body. He clenched her hand so tightly she thought it might have broken and he tore back from her, curling onto his side and all but shoving her off the bed with his feet without intending to do so. Eleanor caught herself before she could fall through the hole in the floor and practically flew around the bed, moving to the side of the bed she had first taken up. She stood, surveying the situation briefly before she did the only thing she could think of. She slid onto the bed and curled her body along his, curving an arm in the crook of his neck and the other draped over him, smoothing his hair down. She moved her mouth close to his ear and began to hum, very quietly, a lullaby her mother had sung to her once, a lifetime ago.

She sent pulses of healing magic out to him until her mana was drained. She smoothed his hair, rubbed his arm and alternated between humming and whispering. When it still didn’t subside, tears spilling freely down both of their cheeks, Eleanor turned her head and pressed a chaste kiss to the space beside his ear. “Cullen, I am here. I will always be here. We will beat this, I promise you.”

And, moments later, he stilled. Eleanor did not stop her ministrations, not even after his breathing grew shallow and she knew he had fallen asleep. She nestled her head in behind his, despite the damp towel under her hip and the fact that she still wore her shoes, and closed her eyes with her mage’s arms still wrapped protectively around the ex-templar.


	4. Eye of the Needle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistiar/Fem!Cousland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of sex?

The youngest and, to her knowledge, last surviving Cousland child thought she had died. She had swallowed her emotions after Riordan told she and Alistair the truth of why Grey Wardens existed and found her way back to her room. Only barely, though. She stood, the door not even closed behind her, staring into the flames of the fireplace, cold and terrified.

She couldn’t even cry, so paralyzed was she by the news. She barely noticed the heavy breathing, the rough footsteps. It wasn’t until she was crushed backwards, arms wrapped around her from behind and a face buried in her neck that she registered there was another person in the room with her.

Alistair’s stubble scratched against the skin it reached between the sections of her hair his chin created as he pressed his face against the curve of her neck. She lifted her arms, wrapping them over the arms around her and lolled her head back, closing her eyes as a sob wracked her body.

Despite Riordan’s assurances that he should be the one to sacrifice himself, Emma had no illusions. The world was not so kind. She should have known from the moment she met Alistair it would come down to this; the moment his brilliant eyes lit up with humor, the moment that she felt the coldness of her heart slowly slip away.

“Don’t…don’t cry, my love,” Alistair whispered against her skin, although Emma could clearly feel the scalding drop of his tears where they bled through her hair. “Please, Emma, don’t cry.”

“What…” she hiccupped a sob, shifting to turn around in his embrace. She lifted her hands and cupped his face in her hands, his own arms still curved around her. “What else can I do? It is…it is leave you or lose you.”

Alistair’s face dropped and he pulled her to his muscled chest, resting his forehead on hers as her hands drifted to his shoulders. “That’s not true, my love. It can’t be. Riordan might…”

“We both know it isn’t that easy,” she hissed, eyes closed against the pain as the tears continued.

“We have made it this far,” he responded, ever the optimist. He tilted his face and pressed his lips to hers, both sets covered in the salt of their tears.

Emma kissed him back in an effort to avoid saying anything that would only make it worse. She wrapped her arms behind his neck, tugging him closer to her as she curved her body up and along his. The longer she kissed him the more fevered it became. What started off as an attempt to soothe began a needy frenzy of tongues, lips, and teeth. They were both panting heavily when they parted to begin to tear each other out of their clothes.

Alistair turned, kicking the door closed as Emma fought with her breastband. In no time at all they stood in the light of the fire, naked as the days they were born. As Alistair pressed his hand into her back and pulled her close to him again, the childlike grin that warmed Emma’s heart lit up his features.

“You are the most beautiful…” he murmured, his hand that didn’t hold her close curving along her jaw. “I love you, Emma Cousland. And I will love you for the rest of time. Beyond that. I will never stop.”

“Oh, Alistair,” she sighed, hands splayed over his bare chest. “You have given me life when I forgot what it was. You are…you are the only reason I am standing here now. And know, if the Fade takes me, I will fight my way back to you. I love you.”

The tears flowed freely that night as they kissed and touched every line of each other’s body in an attempt to memorize the curves, the taste, the feel of each other as if it were their last night together.

As they came together as many times as their increased Grey Warden stamina would allow, they whispered or screamed or moaned their love for each other until the whole of the castle knew it to be true.

When they finally exhausted each other, Emma curled herself along Alistair’s side and he wrapped an arm around her, kissing the top of her head. Neither wanted to sleep but both knew it was imperative to survive the next day.

“Emma,” Alistair murmured into her hair, finding her fingers and interlacing them. “When we survive this, I want something from you.”

She resisted the urge to correct his ‘when’ into an ‘if’ and merely tilted her head back to look up into his loving, wonderful eyes. “Anything, Alistair. Anything in all of Thedas and beyond.”

“Be my wife?”

A sob caught in Emma’s throat, part happiness and part anger. She was furious that it would never come true but she loved him and his beautiful ignorance for believing it might.

“For the rest of time, Alistair.”

They fell asleep in each other’s arms for the last time, dreaming of a wedding neither of them would live to see.


	5. Hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> darkish!Solas/female Lavellan, Fen'Harel/Female Lavellan. Some underage-y stuff, some roughish sex (sort of) stuff. This is not at all even sort of what I had in mind, but it's what happened.
> 
> Edit: Also, thank you to everyone that has commented, bookmarked, or kudos'ed this. Or read it! It makes my little heart so so happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * = land of dreams/the Fade. Couldn't find a word in Elven for it so I made it up.  
> ** = you are my heart. According to the Dragon Age wiki "Ir emah'la shal!" is "You are desecrating my grave!" so I just kind of...butchered it and did stuff to it. Whatever.  
> *** = literally made this up. "For eternity". Got eternity from the wiki but couldn't figure out what 'for' was so I just kind of...put it there.

She was a child the first time she saw him. Young enough not to remember details when she met him again but old enough to want to know him.

Her clan was camped near the border of Orlais, along a nearby stream. They would be heading south soon enough, Ylenia knew. She loved that place though, granted, she loved all of the places she travelled with her clan. She was a quiet girl for the most part but fiery in her own right, keeping to herself unless the Keeper required something of her.

It was a morning not unlike most as she settled with her toes dangling in the warm stream, her legs bare to well above the knee and more skin showing than not. She was only just thirteen summers when Fen’Harel found her, not that she knew it to be him.

A man stood across the shallow stream, bare chested and without shoes. His face held no vallaslin, which was odd, she thought, to see a grown man with no markings. She would get hers soon enough, she was told.

“Andaran atish’an, ma falon,” she smiled up at him, pushing her mass of blonde-brown hair over her thin shoulders.

His own shaggy brown hair was swept aside by a brush of long fingers before he bowed to greet her. “Andaran atish’an, da’len. What brings you alone into the woods today?”

“It’s how I spend most of my time,” she responded with the innocent smile of youth. “You too, I think.”

“Presumptuous, aren’t you?” he chuckled, bending to roll his light pant legs to his knees. “Would you mind if I joined you, da’len?”

With another smile, Ylenia patted the ground beside her. She was taught to fear humans, especially those with insignia of the human church depicted on their armor. Not other elves.

“I’m right, though, aren’t I? You’re alone,” she paused, eyes the color of autumn leaves narrowing as she looked over him. “And you have been lonely. For a long time. But not always.”

Fen’Harel’s face expressed amusement, concern, and curiosity at her summation of his existence.

She frowned a little, looking down at her hands in her lap as he settled into the space beside her. “I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Keeper Deshanna always tells me that I must keep my thoughts to myself.”

“I don’t agree with your keeper. That is a gift, what you can do. Have you always been so-”

“-presumptuous?” she laughed, a light and breathy sound, to which he smiled and shook his head.

“No, da’len. _Observant_.” He stretched his weary legs out, settling his feet in the water beside hers.

She nodded a little, peeking out at him from beneath her light eyelashes. “As far back as anyone can remember. Although there is some consternation as to whether or not it started before I could talk, as they had no way of knowing and I don’t rightly remember.”

“Tell me, da’len, what else can you glean?”

“You’re... _special_ ,” she responded in a quiet voice, her fingers fidgeting in her lap. “I don’t know why, exactly. But you’re different than the elves in my clan. Different than the ones from the…what’s the word? The awful place they live in cities.”

“Alienages,” he offered, trying to keep the grimace off his face.

She didn’t try, a frown lacing her features at the thought of it. “Ma serannas, hahren. Yes, alienages. I feel…oh, it’s silly, really.”

“Feelings are rarely silly,” he smiled a slow smile, dipping his head to catch her eyes. She straightened a little and mirrored his expression, letting out a small sigh.

“I feel like I ought to know you.”

The words were innocuous enough but they struck Fen’Harel deep to the core, causing his breath to catch as he looked at her, deep in her eyes.

He saw something then, far more than she knew – more than she could ever hope to know from looking into him and using her skills of observation or whatever the Gods wanted to call it. They sat for a long moment in silence, gray eyes locked with brown-green.

“What,” he started, unblinking, “…what is your name, lethallan?”

“Ylenia,” she responded, feeling light and heavy all at once. Looking into his eyes was like looking out across Thenerasalan* in her dreams. Time felt slower as she looked at him, unable to tear her gaze away. “And you…ir emma ma vhenan**.”

Fen’Harel’s blood chilled in his veins and then exploded in heat at the words she used. When he spoke again his voice was low, a quiet dark whisper. “You don’t know what you’re saying, lethallan.”

She shifted quickly, as if she were born with a bow in her hand rather than magic in her veins, moving to sit on her knees at his side. She reached out, dirty hands on his pant-covered thigh. “I _know_. I can feel-”

“Shh, da’len,” he murmured, lifting a long finger to press it to her lips. “That path is an impossible one.”

She jerked her head back, eyes narrowed as she lifted a hand to capture the one he had held to her mouth, “No.”

After a beat, Fen’Harel’s eyes never wavering from the lines of her young face, he leaned a little closer as he twisted his body towards her. “No?”

“I can _feel_ you,” she lifted their joined hands to the place where her heart rested beneath skin and bone. His breath hitched almost imperceptibly as she spread his fingers out over her mostly uncovered skin. “You’ll never leave me, not so long as I draw breath.”

He cursed in his mind, knowing she spoke the truth for every reason she said and many more that she had no idea of. His fingers curled around the upper hem of the pathetic excuse for a shirt she wore as he leaned his head forward, forehead meeting hers as he closed his eyes.

“This is a path of pain for both of us,” he let out a shuddered breath, opening his eyes and pulling back just enough to look at her again. “Ir abelas, ma vhenan. Ir abelas.”

“Don’t apologize,” she frowned, lifting her hand that had held his to gently touch his jaw. She had no idea where the thoughts or feelings were coming from, but she was inexplicably drawn to him. He could have killed her right then and there and she never would have been the wiser. The woods were speaking to her, his heart was calling out to hers and she was answering with every ounce herself she could muster. “I am no stranger to pain. Better to have a reason to hurt.”

He shook his head, his hands moving to cup her face. One thumb stroked along her naked cheek before he gently brought her closer. Ylenia’s breath was coming faster now, as if she had just been performing a particularly difficult spell, and she let him lead her lips directly to his.

The morning after meeting her vhenan, Ylenia couldn’t remember his face. She remember the feel of his skin against hers, remember what it was like to look into his eyes but could not remember what color they were.

It was over a year later, the feelings fresh in her mind as always, when he found her again. They were clear across the Free Marches near what the humans called Hercinia with her feet in the Amaranthine Ocean.

The snapping of a twig behind her drew her attention, although she assumed it was just a member of her clan. “Did the Keeper send you?”

“Quite the opposite,” came a voice that was familiar but not something she could place. She turned then, twisting her torso as she looked up the lithe form of a figure she knew without knowing. He chuckled at her with raised eyebrows, “Have you forgotten me so soon, emma lath?”

“Ma vhenan!” she exclaimed, jumping from her position and bounding to him. He caught her in his arms as she jumped to wrap herself around him. She was a slight thing, easily hefted into the air by a mortal, let alone a god. He looked perfectly unchanged, whereas she was a smidge taller with more prominence to her curves, as sparse as they were.

“Shh,” he smiled, one arm holding her beneath her bottom while the over curved around her back, “or you’ll have the whole clan come down around us.”

Her eyes widened and she bit her lower lip, at which point he laughed again as he shook his head and walked her slowly back towards the water. He settled down, keeping her in his lap in a way only someone with strength beyond that of a regular elf could.

“I couldn’t remember,” she frowned, legs curving around his sides as her arms draped over his shoulders.

“What couldn’t you remember?” he asked, pushing aside a portion of hair that obstructed her face. Her face, now marred by the vallaslin her People so religiously held onto. He kept the frown off of his face, although it took all of his willpower to do so. It was the lines they attributed to Dirthamen, the keeper of secrets. As wrong as it was, the choice amused him.

“You,” she sighed, hands moving to cup his face. “Your face. I remembered being near you, _about_ you, but not _you_. I remembered…” she paused, the light blush of embarrassment coloring her cheeks as she looked demurely away for a moment before righting her gaze on him again.

“What, ma vhenan?”

With her hands on his cheeks, she brought them together and pressed her lips to his. It was gentle but powerful. Fen’Harel’s arms curved around her to hold her and let her keep them together as long as she desired. He had all of time to wait for her; he knew she was young but it meant nothing to him. Everyone and everything was _young_ compared to a God.

“There’s a boy in my clan,” she spoke eventually, sometime after their lips parted. She remained in his lap, wanting to be as close to him as she could until he left her again. “Serras. The Keeper believes he will bring me a pelt on my next nameday.”

“Is that so?” Fen’Harel asked, suppressing his protective urges. He was no young mortal to be bothered by the follies of youth. He had _seen_ the future when he looked into her eyes that first meeting, known what she would mean to him more than he could already feel it with her close to him. It was inexplicable, the pull she had on him. It was irrational, it was impossible – but it _was_.

She frowned deeply, resting her forehead against his neck and her ear against his shoulder. “I don’t want it. I only want a pelt from you, ma vhenan.”

Fen’Harel tried hard not to laugh at the idea but couldn’t suppress all of his mirth.

Ylenia swatted him lightly as she sat back, the face she made only causing him to laugh harder.  “What’s funny?”

“Do you truly need a pelt from me?”

“It is our way,” she gave him a black look, crossing her arms over her chest. “It is-”

“I know, da’len,” he hushed her with a finger to her lips again. “I know what it means. But do you truly need a pelt from me to explain to you my feelings?”

“I suppose not,” she conceded, dropping her arms. “But what…what should I do? If he does, I mean.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Burn it,” she smiled, wiggling her fingers beside her head as the smallest bit of flame danced from their tips.

Fen’Harel threw his head back and laughed.

And that was exactly what she did. Not a member of the clan ever offered her a pelt again and, every year or so, she met Fen’Harel, her heart by the water on a day like any other.

When Ylenia, six years after her first meeting with Fen’Harel, saw Solas for the first time, she had no clue who he was. She knew he was an elf, fighting with a staff amongst humans and a dwarf. She had little time to think about much of anything as she and the Seeker rushed into the fight and even less time to dwell on the feeling the touch of his hand around her wrist when he shoved the glowing green mark towards the tear in what the humans called the Fade.

She didn’t recognize him as he turned to her, complimenting her. But _he_ did. He said not a word about it and they went on their merry way.

It wasn’t for some time, after she saved the mages but before the destruction of Haven, that he approached her.

She sat on a rough blanket beside the frozen lake nestled near to where the Commander’s men slept. She stretched her booted feet over the ice and frowned at them, yearning for the warmth of the Free Marches and the freedom of a shoeless life.

“Best not dip your toes,” he offered from her side. She turned to look at him and smiled a little, moving over on the blanket to offer him a spot to sit.

“I used to when I was with my clan. We always camped near water-”

“-And you spent much of your time alone, in the woods. Often with your feet in the water.”

“How do you know that?” she asked with a small laugh, used to be the person on the other end of such revelations. Solas, though, she could not read. Not one whit.

“Call it an observation.”

“An obser-” she stopped, eyes going wide before she whipped her head towards him, hair long and flying. “It’s you! Ma vhenan!”

Solas lifted one long finger and pressed it to her lips, “Shh, da’len. You’ll wake all of Haven if you aren’t careful.”

“You…why…why did you not _tell_ me?” she hissed in a whisper, taking his hand away from her mouth and holding it in her own. “All of this time, we could have-”

“It’s dangerous,” he responded quietly. “And complicated.”

“But we are-”

“Oh, emma lath, don’t,” he shook his head, hand not encased in hers lifting to her cheek. The vallaslin, of course, remained. He had known it was her from a distance, from the moment Cassandra led him to her sleeping form. “We cannot.”

“ _What_?” she exclaimed, tearing herself away from him. “You mean to tell me, all of this time, all of my life spent _loving you_ , and now… now that we are together-”

“It’s not that simple, Ylenia,” he sighed, clenching his jaw. “I should not have crossed the stream.”

She shook her head, throwing herself at him. She straddled him, pressing his hands into the snow with her own. “No,” she spoke, resolutely as she lowered her face to his.

It was too much for him. The occasional kisses they had shared as she matured had grown increasingly intimate as time went on and he had spent _months_ within arm’s reach but not touching her.

“No?” he questioned, voice low.

“You do not get to decide what’s best for me,” she growled, eyes searching his. “This is what I want. _You_ are what I want.”

Faster the Ylenia knew what was happening, Solas had reversed the situation. Ylenia was flat on her back, restrained rather than Solas. His one hand gripping her combined wrists in the frigid snow above her head. His other hand started at the top of her head and drifted down slowly as he leaned his face closer. He stopped short of pressing his lips to hers. “This is not a game, da’len.”

Her breath was coming rapidly, her body aching from his grip and his weight and in an entirely different way as his hand skimmed over parts of her untouched by other hands. “I know. I am yours, ma vhenan. Lo bellanaris***.”

The sound that Solas made was similar to one her love had made some time ago, after her seventeenth summer when she sat in his lap and slid her hips over his. It was half a growl and half a groan. This time, it carried the words, “ma nuvenin,” before he captured her mouth with his.

She had bruises the next morning; on her wrists, on her shoulders, on her hips. Bruises that never healed, as they were repeatedly offended by Solas just before they were about to disappear.

No one knew. Solas treated her no differently as they worked together with their other companions, did not go out of his way to seek her out. Except in secret.

One night, sometime after they had found Skyhold, Ylenia stood on her balcony with the stars overhead.

The weight of the world was on her shoulders, nightmares of Corypheus haunted her sleep – but still, her mind almost never left Solas. They still told no one, still pretended to have little to nothing to do with each other when it came to anyone else. It was driving her mad.

As she settled her hands on the cold stone of the railing, a hand slid over her mouth.

Warm breath on her ear warned her not to scream.

A hand slid across her stomach, beneath the thin negligée Josephine had gifted to her after an incident in which the Commander walked in on her nude in her rooms. It wasn’t much better but it was slightly less jarring.

Ylenia knew it was Solas but her heart was still beating rapidly, the feeling of his desire pressed hard into her back as his fingers made their way to nipples made hard by the cold but kept so by his touch. The hand that covered her mouth slid slowly to her neck, remaining gentle but firm.

“Did you know,” he began, his voice hot against her ear as he lavished attention on it by way of his tongue and teeth, sending shivers down her spine, “that our dear resident Warden fancies you?”

Ylenia choked at the thought, knowing what was coming. She shook her head a little, trying not to disturb his work that had moved down to the curve of her neck. “I’m sure…it’s nothing, Solas.”

He bit down on the tender flesh that joined her shoulder to her neck and she bit her lip to keep from expressing the pain aloud. He would leave a mark and they both knew it.

“If you keep doing that, we’re going to have to tell people. It’s hard to explain away the bruises you leave.”

Faster than she knew he could move, he had her pressed, hard, against the wall outside her bedroom. Her hands were trapped above her head in one wrist, his body keeping hers still as his free hand roamed.

“You are in battle enough that no one thinks twice and you know it,” he growled, dipping his head to nip at her chin.

“I should’ve taken the pelt,” she spat and his grip tightened on her wrists, his other hand curving along her throat.

“You don’t mean that, ma vhenan,” he cooed, a hurt look on his face despite the position he had her in. “Say you don’t mean it.”

“I feel like you keep my locked away,” she murmured, his hand loose enough for her to talk without difficulty. It slid down her chest, not reaching her breasts. “Like I am this awful secret, like I have been for as long as I’ve known you. I couldn’t tell anyone about you, about us, not ever. I could barely _remember what you looked like_ and I _know_ it wasn’t my fault. Why, Solas? Why can’t we sit together at meals, hold hands when it suits us…talk during the day, for Mythal’s sake?”

His death-grip on her hands ceased and she lowered them to her sides as he pulled away from her, turning his back to her. “I warned you,” he breathed as he settled his hands on the balcony’s railing.

“About what?”

“About this. Us. _Me_. I’m trying…” he stopped, heaving a sigh as she came to stand beside him. He turned towards her, keeping one hand on the railing as the other fell limp at his side. “If I give you what you want, it will never be the same.”

“I don’t understand, Solas,” she cried, face contorted in confusion as she took a step towards him.

“What part I have in your life now is mine,” he began, the hand from his side coming to rest on her hip. “But for us to become…for me to…for all of that to happen, Ylenia, I will become yours and you will become mine, intertwined and inseparable in a way you cannot truly comprehend. I cannot fully explain the magnitude of the situation now but…what you are asking is more than what you know. That will destroy the last bastion of resolve I have, it will move the last guard between…” He stopped, shaking his head. He pulled her close with both hands on her waist and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. “You are the Inquisitor, the Herald. The fate of the world rests on your shoulders.”

 _And I am the Dread Wolf. The fate of everything rests on mine_ , he thought to himself with a grimace.

“I know,” she responded with a frown of her own as she rested her hands on his shoulders. “But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be able to love you freely and openly for as long as I can, which is all that I want. Consider it a dying wish.”

“You’re not going to die,” he growled, eyes darkening as he crushed her to him. “Never, ma vhenan.”

Ylenia rolled her eyes at him; that was not the first time he had something so ridiculous and she let out a small laugh. “Everyone dies some time, emma lath. But I appreciate your faith in me.”

He kissed her again, kiss the laugh from her throat and the smile from her lips. Kissed the worry from her brow and the sorrow from her mind. He kissed her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes and back again, lavished her in love and affection until the sun rose the next morning.

The bruises on her wrists never faded but one morning, after returning from the Winter Palace, Ylenia found a wolf’s pelt laying across her bed and she knew that, for eternity, she was his.


	6. Straight for the Knife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris/fem!Mage Hawke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dark stuff in this chapter, there is some mildly explicit rough sex.

He drove her mad. From the first time she saw him, she was struck. Partially because he was removing someone’s heart with his fist but it was more than that. He was the most incredible-looking man she had ever laid eyes on and she didn’t think it had anything to do with his lyrium tattoos.

And then his voice. Even when it was tight with anger, it was like music to her ears. And a powerful aphrodisiac, truth be told.

And it was filled with anger more often than not. Especially when he spoke to her. It wasn’t that he hated her, necessarily, it was that he hated her magic. Especially considering that she somewhat freely partook in blood magic. She never used anyone else for her rituals, never even asked. That didn’t matter to Fenris, as blinded by hatred as he was.

But she understood. Her heart ached for him when she thought of his life before escaping Danarius’ clutches; her life had been hard as an apostate in a family of apostates but nothing even remotely like his, even just the part he remembered. But she wasn’t about to stop using blood magic just because he disapproved. There was nothing wrong with what she did and she wasn’t hurting anyone in the meantime.

Fenris never saw it that way. He took every opportunity to          question her decisions regarding magic. HE seemed to agree with her about everything else. She didn’t hold it against him, she couldn’t. Despite what people believed about maleficar in general, the oldest Hawke child was a genuinely kind soul. Her use of blood magic had nothing to do with a desire to work with demons or a lust for power. It was a thing taught to her by her father. He had not taught Bethany, fearing that she didn’t have the constitution. Malcom believed that his oldest child understood the importance of knowing as much as she could be taught. Blood magic, he insisted, wasn’t evil. It was people that manipulated it which caused all of the issues.

Hawke believed it too, despite what she saw occurring around her in the city of Kirkwall. Despite Fenris’ stories of the magisters in Tevinter and their blood-crazed terror.

Regardless of their differences, Hawke believed truly that there was a goodness in Fenris that she wished to touch. Alone with her brother a templar and her mother killed by a maniac, Hawke found her way to Fenris’ mansion one evening. She had spent the better part of the time after dinner fighting with herself. Her mother had insisted, a long time ago, that she utilize make-up and that she dress more femininely – regardless of whether she was in light armor or not. Hawke relented eventually and acquiesced to Leandra’s requests. That night was no exception; in fact, it seemed, she put that much more effort into her appearance.

She and Fenris had been dancing around each other for something like three years, flirting shamelessly when he wasn’t at her throat about her life choices. Hawke wanted it to end. One way or another, it was going to end. If she spent the night in his bed or she told him off, there would be no more back and forth. Her heart couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t know if Fenris did it because he was bored or because he felt similarly, but she would soon find out.

“Fenris?” she called in her Ferelden accent as she entered his mansion, shoving the door closed behind herself. She didn’t have her staff; the trip to his house took mere minutes and she had no intention of detours. It was unnecessary. Besides, she didn’t require it to be useful.

She didn’t get a response and so she started up the stairs towards the room that he most frequented. She entered with another call of his name, pushing the door aside. She found him seated in front of the fire with a bottle of Aggregio dangling from his gloved fingertips. To call the metal casings that ended in points on his fingers ‘gloves’ was probably a little generous.

“Hawke,” he spat, taking a swig of his wine and not turning to look at her. After a long stretch of silence he gestured half-heartedly at seat across from him. “Are you going to stand in the doorway all night?”

“Didn’t seem like you wanted me to come in,” she responded and she skirted around behind him, moving into the room before taking up in the chair he gestured to. She looked up at him and caught sight of his face as he took her in, a well-made dress over a corset that would have made her mother proud. Orana, although she had never been a woman’s handmaid, knew enough about hair to do something with Hawke’s dark mop and the make-up was befitting of a ball.

Fenris snorted, “Are you going somewhere?”

“Just here,” she responded with a frown, setting her sweaty palms on her dress-covered knees as she leaned forward uneasily.

“Not going to visit your abomination?”

Hawke rolled her eyes and sat straighter, “Fenris, I’ve told you a thousand times, there’s nothing going on with Anders.”

“Why not?” he asked blankly, green eyes narrowed as he watched the movements of her face.

“Do you want to hear what I think you want to hear or the truth?”

“Surprise me.”

“You,” she responded slowly, wringing the fingers on one hand around her bare wrist. The scars from her magic were mostly healed, although there was a rather fresh one from dealing with the man that had stolen her mother. It slash along her palm, pale pink and long but looking more like a year old rather than a month fresh.

“Which was that?” he asked, leaning forward and setting his elbows on his knees.

“Which one do you think, Fenris?”

“Certainly not what I wanted to hear,” he guffawed, sitting straight again before drinking more of the wine. When it was finished, he threw the wasted bottle into the fire.

Hawke sighed heavily and stood, smoothing her hands over her dress.

“Are you leaving so soon?” Fenris asked with a raised eyebrow as he stood along with her, faster than she ever could hope to be.

“You clearly don’t want me here,” she shook her head; putting a foot out to walk passed him. He caught her roughly by the arm as she approached him, jerked her body close to his so that her shoulder hit his chest. The metal points on his gauntlets dug into the tender flesh of her exposed upper arm.

“Sit. Down,” he growled against her ear and she turned her head, blue eyes wide as she shifted them to his green ones. There was the hatred she had grown accustomed to, but so much more than that. A pleading, too. And a _need_.

He could snap her neck, stop her heart, and there wasn’t a thing she could do. He was far too fast for her to defend herself and, she thought, they both knew it. His hand squeezed again, causing her to bite her lip to avoid expressing her discomfort before he released her. Tentatively she shuffled her feet backwards until her calves hit the front of the chair and she collapsed back into it, breathing heavily.

“So you do not want the apostate,” Fenris resumed their earlier conversation, his low voice conversational with an edge of something much darker. He had remained standing and moved away from her to retrieve another bottle, a different kind, and two glasses from the table. He rarely used the glasses but Varric had gifted him his very own set. It seemed appropriate, to him at least.

The bottle he brought back was stout and square, full of a liquor much stronger than the wine that he had previously been imbibing. Hawke was a slight thing, for a human, and drank little when she found herself at the Hanged Man. The glassful he poured for her would play hell on her senses but she took it and raised her glass when he offered a toast in Tevene.

“And you are suggesting,” he spoke around the swimming in her head. The burn of the alcohol set her to coughing and he, slightly put out, waited until she finished. “Better?” she nodded and he smiled wanly. “Are you suggesting that you have feelings for me, Hawke? All of this? For me?”

She felt like a complete fool, her pale cheeks bursting with color at the tone of voice he used. She picked at the tie that criss-crossed over her torso with one hand as she lifted the drink to her lips again. It still burned but she managed to suppress the cough. Unable to find her voice to respond she merely nodded at him.

“And what did you think would come of such a display?” he asked with an eyebrow cocked, long fingers holding his short circular glass by the rim as he swirled it absently. He hadn’t let the stuff touch his lips yet and his glass was half as full as hers, if not less so.

Eyes still wider than normal, she shook her head a little and remained silent.

“Speak, damn it,” he snarled, stalking towards her. He hadn’t sat down again, merely stood in front of his previous spot on the bench that ran parallel to the face of the fireplace. “Have you gone dumb, Hawke?”

A hollow feeling in her chest made her feel slightly sick and despite her best intentions, tears pricked at the lower edges of her kohl-rimmed eyes. “I…The way we talk sometimes, I just thought…maybe…”

When she stammered to a halt, Fenris tipped his glass back and downed the liquid before rearing his arm back to throw his cup. He thought better of it at the last second and set it on the bench roughly before turning his attention back to her. Hawke held her own glass between both hands in her lap, half of the liquid gone that he had poured into it. He stopped practically on top of her and leaned down, hands pressed into the armrests of the chair that she left untouched. His face loomed over hers and he smiled a wicked grin, teeth bared.

“What did you think, Hawke? That you’d find me salivating over the thought of you?” He moved one metal-encased hand from the chair and trailed the cold, rough material over her soft cheek before dropping it to pass over the swell of her modest chest, his eyes watching the path his hand took. When she inhaled sharply at his touch, his eyes snapped back to her face. He glanced down again only to find the sharp, pointed end of his index finger’s casing ready to tear through the ties along her bodice. “Is this what you want, Hawke?” He tugged, snapping the top installment of the cord. She gasped slightly, not truly expecting him to do it. She didn’t respond otherwise and he shifted his hand to tug at the next lowest cross of the tie.

Her breathing was labored, her chest pressing against the restriction of her corset and bodice with fervor. Fenris’ eyes skipped to scene it caused with his head tilted so that she wouldn’t be able to glean his interest directly.

“You are far too quiet this evening,” he spoke low, mocking her. Her dress half-torn, he stood back from the chair and nodded to the glass in her hand. “Finish it.”

All of her fight was gone. She was generally a quiet and somewhat demure individual in polite company and attempted to be diplomatic in… _other_ situations but this wasn’t something that Fenris knew her to stand for. It was unsettling to him, set him on edge. He watched as she choked down the amber intoxicant and took the glass from her far more delicately than she expected.

“Now tell me,” his voice was a low rumble, reverberating in her head and her chest as he leaned over her again. “Tell me what you want, Hawke. Why are you here?”

“You,” she whispered, eyes locked on his.

The grin that curved his lips was more maniacal than it was appreciative although she could see the flash of something in the otherwise dark look in his eyes. In a flash, his hand swept down and his fingers dipped into the front of her chest. He gripped the fabric and jerked her into a standing position, her body forced roughly against his. His hand disconnected from her front and found her backside, holding her tightly despite the armor that he still mostly wore. His other hand forced itself into her hair, the metal that covered his fingers tearing at strands while it did so.

The noise she made set his jaw and the hand at the back of her head pushed her face to his, crushing her lips against his as he angled his mouth over hers. Her hands were crushed between them, separated their chests until he finally released her long enough to breath. She pressed her hands against the armor on his chest as she looked up at him.

The look in her eyes had him pushing her down to the chair that she had been sitting in, on the edge of it. He pressed her shoulders back, having her lean herself against the back of the chair at an awkward angle as he used the sharp point on his gauntlet to tear down the rest of her bodice. She shivered as the sound of fabric tearing filled hear ears and let out a soft moan as he shoved the skirts of her dress up, bunching over her stomach. He let out a hiss of breath when he discovered that she had intentionally not worn any beneath her dress. He curved his fingers and scraped the metal down her bare thighs gently enough not to cause her to bleed but hard enough to make her squirm.

“You came here to seduce me,” he growled, his head disappearing over the hill of the fabric in her lap. With his hands wrapped beneath her knees he jerked her so that she was teetering on the edge of the chair, bending her neck at an awkward angle until she used her arms to keep her propped without using only the muscles in her stomach.

“Is…is it working?” she breathed, closing her eyes as she felt his warm breath along her pale thigh. His hands were gone and his lips were there, pressing against the sensitive skin just shy of the apex of her legs. When his hands returned to her, they were bare. The feeling of him against her flesh was electric, even as his grip tightened at the same moment that his tongue slashed out against the part of her that craved him the most.

He didn’t deign to respond to her verbally, instead using his tongue for something else entirely.  Using only his tongue he worked her into a frenzy between delving into the secret she offered him and stroking the bundle of nerves that craved his touch. Her body stiffened and her whimper tipped him off that she was so very, very close. Gauging the timing to perfection as if he had known her as  lover for years rather than simply dreaming about it, he turned his head and bit down on her thigh. Hard.

Taken aback by the shift, she let out a scream without a second thought before her body shook from holding in the orgasm he had stroked from her with his tongue.

“Fenris,” she hissed, fingers clenching the armrests tight enough to turn her knuckles white. Her breathing was labored and she whimpered, pleading with him “Please…”

His tongue laved at the spot that he had reddened with his teeth, soothing it gentle as he let her come down from the closeness of her orgasm. When she had relaxed enough that he believed her to be much further from the edge, his hand replaced his tongue between her legs and she nearly died. She moaned at the first brush of his thumb over her clit and bucked her hips when his middle finger curved inside of her.

“Oh, Maker, Fenris,” she cried, her breathing ragged as she moved between his hand and the chair. When he felt her walls clench around his finger, he jerked his hand back and turned his head to bite down on her unoffended thigh. This time the sound that tore from her throat was a half-moan of his name.

He dodged his head forward and ran his tongue up her entrance once before pulling back. He slowly, daintily lowered her skirts and let them fell gently around her ankles again.

He then stood, gathered his gauntlets, and moved to gather up another bottle of Aggregio before he resumed his position on the bench he had occupied some time later.

Hawke had no idea what was going on. After a while her breathing resumed its normal pace and she readjusted herself into a proper sitting position and slid her eyes over to him.

“Fenris-”

“You haven’t left yet?”

Confused and slightly hurt, Hawke remained in silence for a few more minutes before Fenris threw another empty bottle into the fire and she jumped straight up, clasping her torn dress closed over her chest. She moved to the door and turned back, looking over her shoulder at Fenris as he sat, staring into the flames before him and not paying her any attention.

About a week later, he was waiting for her in the foyer of her house. Bodahn, Sandal, and Orana were long-since asleep when she sighed, closing the door and locking it before she turned to face the room.

From the shadows he slid behind her, his bare hand covering her mouth with one hand and sliding the other down the breeches that she wore. She could feel his hard body against her back, one particular part of him pressed against the curve just above her bottom.

But she didn’t know it was Fenris. She struggled against him, despite the fact that his arms were placed in a particular manner that held hers down and tried in vain to bite the hand over her mouth.

The deep chuckle that reverberated through her chest had her relaxing as soon as she recognized it. His hand slid from her mouth to her throat, tightening around it but not hard enough to keep her from breathing entirely.

“Do you still want me, Hawke?” he spoke against her ear before running his tongue along the curve of it.

“Yes,” she croaked around the strength of his hand and the one down her breeches shifted further, a finger finding her slit. He let slip a low groan when he found her already far wetter than he had anticipated. He throbbed against her back. He withdrew his hands in a flash, one sliding across her hip and unsheathing her dagger skillfully while the other shoved her, hard, in the direction of the wall. He followed on her heels and pressed against the back of her head to force her against the wall. Her cheek pressed against the stone, she watched him out of her periphery. The foyer was dark save for one torch on the wall opposite them, all others having been doused by Fenris in anticipation of her arrival. She could see the glint of her knife as he pressed the flat side of it against her shoulder, sliding it carefully down her arm.

“Is this what you use?” he asked conversationally as it watched it trace the awkward angle of her bent elbow. “To cast your sick magic?”

She swallowed roughly but couldn’t nod against the pressure of his hand. “Yes.” She let out a quiet sigh as his hand let up, only to flip her against the wall so that her back was pressed there. His hand found the position on her throat, holding her to the wall once more. He moved the knife to her cheek and watched the fear flash in her eyes. He smirked and raised it as if he would bring it down into her breast, although the worst it did was tear open the plain linen shirt that she wore. When he carefully, delicately utilized the knife to remove her breastband, she let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. He switched the dagger to the hand that held her throat, the handle of it pressing against her windpipe and the flatness of the blade against the exposed skin of her collarbone. If she shifted too much, her skin would catch on it.

His hand grabbed one of her exposed breasts roughly and he covered her mouth, nipping at her lip before coaxing her to let his tongue dance with hers. She moaned into his mouth when the grabbing at her breast turned into a stroking and his fingers eventually found the already pointed nipple, first just rubbing in a circle around the point it made before taking it between his index finger and his thumb to roll it. Gently at first. But not for long.

He thrust his hips against hers in the same moment that he twisted her nipple more roughly than she had anticipated, causing her to whimper against his lips. He broke from her mouth and bent his head, using the hand on her chest to position her breast so that he could caress her with his tongue.

He used her right breast until she began to grind her hips against his, at which point he grasp on her to the opposite hand so that he could appropriately molest her left side. When he had her writhing to his liking, he straightened his back up and took the dagger in his free hand. He then trailed it over her exposed chest, careful not to cut her but to make her think that he might. The blade flipped onto its edge, he ran it precariously over her taught nipple. When she made a noise of protest, he tightened his grip on her neck. Her hands, used predominately for trying to grip the wall up to that point, flew to his wrist and held on as if to remove it. He smiled to himself at her futile attempts.

For some time he toyed with her emotions before he resumed his assault on her mouth, during which he used the sharp edge of the blade against her stomach. He pressed just hard enough to draw blood and she gasped into the kiss. He knife to the floor with a clatter before running his thumb over the would he had created and collected the blood on the pad of it, lifting his hand and swiping it across the bridge of her nose.

All at once he removed himself from her, straightening his tunic and turning away from her. He unlocked the door without a word and disappeared into the evening, pained with every step he took away from her and disgusted with himself but unable to stop.

Over the next several weeks, the occurrences that he found her in whatever precarious position he could increased in frequency and escalated each time. Her home, his, the Hanged Man, a dark alley. Whenever and wherever he could find her alone, he took complete advantage of the situation. Isabela commented on the bruises that bloomed on her skin but Hawke waved her off and Fenris felt his breeches grow tight.

On the night in question, he was waiting her bedroom for him dressed in plainclothes. Well. Dressed in breeches. His torso was uncovered, the lyrium tattoos that so fascinated everyone dripping into the waistband and disappeared, only to reappear on his bare feet.

Hawke was wearing another dress, sans corset, as she had been at the Hanged Man with Varric, Isabela, and Merrill and it was fortunate that she was not carrying anything as she would have likely dropped it.

She had never seen Fenris without a shirt before. Not even when he needed healing. She was immediately mesmerized, too distracted to react as he stalked forward and forced her against the door she had just walked through. He held hands at her side, nudging her hair out of the way to press kisses to her neck. Gentle, sweet kisses. He nipped lightly, lapping at the spots afterwards to soothe them before he found her mouth with hers.

He was all passion and fire, repositioning her hands above her head and collecting them in one hand so that he could explore her body with the free one. She could already feel the pressure of his need against her lower stomach. She struggled against his hand, wanting desperately to touch him.

He ‘tsked’ against her lips when he broke the kiss, lips curved in a smirk.

“I want to feel you,” she murmured, opening her eyes to look into his as he pulled back enough to do so. “All of you, Fenris. Every inch. _Please_.”

Over the last two months or so of their involvement, Fenris had not allowed her release. Not once. He, personally, had touched himself furiously often more than once a day at the thought of her.

He released her hands then and she let out a contented sigh as her hands found his bare skin. She pulled him close, instigating a kiss for the first time and running her hand over every bare bit of him she could find. His hand slid into her hair, cradling the back of her head while his other hand curved around her bottom.

They clashed roughly against the door as the two of them fought for dominance, although there wasn’t much true fight to it. Hawke knew that he could easily wrest the power from her and that she would hardly try to keep it from him. He separated their bodies long enough to tear away at her clothing and allow her to work him out of his trousers. He thrust her towards the four-poster bed, practically throwing her on top of the mattress before pouncing on her. He bit, licked, and kissed every available part of her as her hands ran over whatever she could touch. With the teasing of the last several weeks going unaddressed, Hawke felt like she was going to explode by the time he started paying close attention the more sensitive parts of her body. The heavy length of him teased along her thigh and stomach as he moved along her body to drive her to the brink.

When he felt that she was sufficiently begging, between the writhing of her body and the low moans she let escape, he captured her mouth against his and her wrists in long fingers above her head.

“I have waited for this for so long,” he growled against her flushed cheek, breath curling along her skin and caressing her ear. He dipped his head and nipped at her ear, groaning against it when her own lips found the elongated point of his ear. He had spent all of their time together focusing entirely on making her crave and fear him. Want him and _need_ him. Through all of it, the most he had allowed her to do was react to him – not instigate. It was something else entirely when she touched him, when she found ways to entice him more. It made him want to ravage her and it took all of his willpower not to take her the instant he had her naked, let alone when she began to do whatever she could to make him need her as much as she needed him.

He settled between her thighs, hips lined with hers as he let her wrists slip from his grasp and position himself to take her like had thought about, like both of them had thought about, for longer than either of them would admit. With one hand on her hip and the other holding him above her, he entered her slowly. Painstakingly slow and she whimpered at the feel of him, gasping as he stretched her when he buried himself as deeply as he could go, the bones in his hip pressing against her too-far spread thighs.

“Festis bei umo canavarum,” he breathed, dropping his head to find her mouth with his as he pulled his hips back from hers just as slowly as he had brought them together. He was nearly gone from her when he was done and her hands flew to his shoulders as if to keep him there.

“Fenris,” she hissed, daring to nip at his chin as she was unable to reach his lips with the angle he had his head at. He tilted his head down and nudged hers to turn away, trailing kisses on the exposed skin of her neck with her dark hair pressed beneath her. He continued his slow pace for quite some time, the hand that had been on her hip moving to tease her at every point her could. His breathing grew labored with the exertion of keeping himself in check and hers quickened with the slow build of an orgasm that she hoped he would let her achieve.

Her body began to quiver beneath his and she whimpered his hand as she dug her nails into his shoulders, lifting her hips to chase his in search of sweet release. He kept his distance and his pace, teasing her until her heels dug into the bed as she tightened around him. He jerked out of her and closed his teeth around the tender flesh that joined her neck to her shoulder as he thrust himself back inside of her, at which point the built-up tension of two moons of teasing erupted into a mind-shattering orgasm, accompanied by a deep, throaty- moan which Fenris chorused at the feel of her around him.

She was near tears with the feel of it, her body shaking of its own accord beneath him. He began to move at a punishing pace, keeping her riding the wave of her orgasm until she came crashing into another one. He had her crying, scrabbling at him, clinging to him as she shattered over and over. He gathered her up against his chest and buried his face against her neck, his back curved as he brought them as close together as two people could be.

“Amatus,” Fenris spoke against her skin, seconds before he had her screaming his name for what seemed like the hundredth time that night and his own body shivered when he buried himself as deeply as he could an released every ounce of desire he had for her into her.

Light erupted behind his eyelids as he came and he gasped at the flood of memories that rushed against him. He clung to her and closed his eyes with his cheek pressed to hers.

They fell asleep entwined, Fenris still inside of her even as he softened. He clung to her through the night, through both of their nightmares,

When Hawke awoke the next morning it was to Fenris pacing in front of her fireplace. He was dressed haphazardly in more than she had seen him in the night before.

“Is everything okay?” she frowned, sitting up. She shifted to the edge of the bed and brought a sheet along with her when she settled her feet on the ground.”Fenris?”

He halted and turned, looking at her with defeat and darkness amongst the other emotions that Hawke had grown accustomed to.

“I can’t do this,” he shook his head, body stiffening in more way than one when he saw her mostly naked form standing across from him.

“Was it…did I do something wrong?” she frowned, taking a step towards him. He held a hand up to stop her and shook his head.

“No, Hawke. It’s not…it wasn’t you. It was… _perfect_. Absolutely perfect. It was more incredible than I thought it could be,” he frowned despite the pleasant words coming from his lips. He came upon her, his hands tight-fingered around her upper arms. “I remembered, Hawke. I remembered _everything_. My life before the branding. I lost it again, but it was _there_.”

“You remember remembering but not what you remembered?” she blinked into his eyes, trying to process everything he was saying.

“I…yes,” he shook his head a little, dropping his eyes briefly before he looked up again to her gaze.

“That doesn’t mean… we don’t have to, you know-”

“I can’t,” he pulled her close, his fingers pinching her skin and his grip bruising. He moved his hands from her arms to her face, one hand curved mostly behind her head and the other along her cheek and jaw. “I can’t,” he shook his head and pulled her face to his. The kiss he stole from her was all fire and passion, need so intense she felt her knees go weak. He pushed her against the wall beside the fireplace, his leg finding a spot between hers and the hand that had been on the back of her head pressed to the wall beside it.

He nipped her lip until it bled, his breath heavy against her skin. He set his forehead against hers and moved the hand from her cheek to the curve of her waist.

“I was a fool to believe I could be happy,” he spoke, his gravelly voice skirting across her face as she closed her eyes against his words and what they meant for her. “This shouldn’t have happened and I’m sorry.”

She opened her eyes wide as he pulled back from her; she felt suddenly very cold and alone when he removed himself from her, watching him as he moved away.

“Fenris?” she called, her voice broke. She saw, after he turned away from her and faced the door, his shoulders droop as his name reverberated in the room. He didn’t turn back around, didn’t look over his shoulder, and never forgot the sound of his name coming from her lips.


	7. Fair Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen/fem!rogue Trevelyan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Underage love, although there is no sex.

“She’s a child,” a voice, heavily accented to Evie’s ringing ears, interrupted the girl’s fitful slumber. “Why is she in chains?”

“Child or no, she’s our greatest suspect and likely the only person living with any knowledge of what happened to the Divine.”

“Can we at least unbind her?”

Evie lost and gained consciousness repeatedly over the next several minutes. The most rude awakening was the Seeker jerking her hand, crackling with a magical energy that Evie didn’t understand, into the air and practically screaming in her face.

Somehow she managed to squeak out a response, her voice high and her chapped lips cracking around her agreement to assist.

Evie was terrified practically every second of every day from the moment she woke up in shackles until Josephine asked her to stay after a moment, several weeks after they had come to call her Herald. Leliana remained in the corner while the Commander and the Seeker left with sidelong glances.

“Herald, I need to…uhh, speak with you. A moment, if you do not mind.” Josephine asked, tilting her head towards the door. Evie, her heart beating like a rabbit’s in her chest, closed the door over and joined Josie back at the table.

“Herald…Leliana and I have recently uncovered something about you that we felt we ought to address.”

“We knew you were young,” the Orlesian ex-bard moved forward, pushing her hood back with one smooth movement before she crossed her arms over her chest. “But we had no idea exactly _how_ young until recently.”

“And what does that mean?” Evie asked, wide eyes wider with concern. Would they lock her up in a tower and throw away the key? Keep her ‘safe’?

“It means…” Josephine sighed a little, setting her writing board and quill down on the war table and moving around to settle a hand on Evie’s shoulder, “it means we have been far, far too hard on you.”

Evie froze at the touch and nearly died at the words. Too hard on her?

Sure, she cried. She cried _a lot_ but what fourteen-year-old girl didn’t? It didn’t matter that she was tall, taller than Josephine but quite a fair bit shorter than the Commander. Her curves had come in early although they were not necessarily over generous. Her body was thin but taught, muscles honed from years of play before the training began four years before. She was one of the youngest recruits at age ten but her father wanted her gone before her mother got any ideas about marrying her off. It was Evelyn Lucille Trevelyan’s duty to join the Order and carry on the relationship with the Chantry that her family had upheld for generation after generation. No matter what.

She would turn fifteen in a few short months, a point of which both Leliana and Josephine were aware.

“It will do no one any good to find out,” Leliana spoke, her blue eyes shifting over Evie’s face. “We discussed it at length but believe that the secret is best kept between the three of us. It is quite easy to tell that you are young but not so easy to tell just _how_ young. If people knew it would be harder to convince them to allow you to accompany those that need you into the field.”

Basically, Evie thought, I would be a figurehead. She was younger even the Empress Celene when she took the throne of Orlais at sixteen. Evie smiled smugly a little at the thought but caught herself, looking over to Leliana and then Josephine.

“I will do my best to remain as…aloof as possible, then. Can’t have me sitting here, twiddling my thumbs while people like Cassandra and Leliana’s scouts are out dying for us.”

And, just like that, the thing that terrified Evie almost more than the giant tear in the sky was addressed and shoved under the rug. She was fourteen or forty, it didn’t matter.

Until the Commander’s eyes softened.

They had spoken several times since they had first met, whenever there was time. Evie liked him instantly, even if he sometimes sounded like one of the stuffy Order tutors. But he was definitely handsome. The sort of handsome that made a fourteen-year-old weak in the knees with the deepest of crushes, only amplified  by the interest he took in her when he wasn’t busy being stuffy.

Evie spent the majority of her time while not on the road with the recruits at Haven. It was partially to be as close to Cullen as possible but also because she quite enjoyed the reactions she received from the general male populace during the training exercises. Certainly no one was particularly overt; she was the Herald, after all. But she could see their eyes dip and their tongue lick their lips. She could hear what they said to each other when they thought she wasn’t listening.

And she loved impressing the Commander. She loved sweeping the feet out from beneath someone and tilting her head back to see Cullen standing with his arms folded across his chest, trying to pretend that he hadn’t noticed her prowess.

On her fifteenth birthday she was miraculously back at Haven after gathering the mages to their side. Cullen asked her why she did it.

“They came to me,” she responded, looking up at him with resolve and the smallest bit of feigned innocence. “That woman, Grand Enchanter Fiona? She sought me out, asked me for help. She went through a lot to do that. And Lord Seeker Lucius wanted nothing to do with me or with Cassandra. There’s something wrong with the templars but the mages needed me and let me know. I still think we should try to talk to them, although I doubt they will listen now that we’ve recruited the mages.”

Cullen’s amber colored eyes watched her from his position above her, his body dwarfing hers even if she was taller than most women in their immediate company. She was a slight thing that dual-wielded daggers, spritely and fast in battle and out. She wasn’t  in and of herself particularly intimidating, all long limbs and curves like the sort of women you would see with a baby on their hip by eighteen years – but she had a way about her. Perhaps more impressive than her physical skills was her ability to charm others. Leliana commented once that, had she not been the Herald, the Spymaster would have sought her out for her assistance either way. A silver tongue, she said. As young as she was Evie, didn’t always understand what she was doing.

“I still don’t like it,” the Commander shrugged with a small sigh, “but the decision was yours to make and you succeeded in getting us the power that we needed to close the Breach. I just don’t know that the other templars that have joined us will…appreciate the new recruits.”

“I’ll talk to them,” she waved her hand dismissively at the idea of their disapproval. “Do you trust me, Commander?”

He hesitated at the words that she spoke, eyes searching her face as he weighed the truth of his answer before he nodded. “Yes, Herald. I don’t agree with you but I do trust you.”

“Then so will the recruits,” she smiled, setting a hand lightly on the fur-covered pauldron on his shoulder. “Have a good night, Commander.”

She did speak to the recruits and ended up taking several of them to the Singing Maiden, partaking in more rounds than she normally did. She wandered with them, laughing with her arms draped over the shoulders of two young men, swerving on their way back to the boys’ tents.

She tilted her head back and laughed uproariously into the night before she leaned into the light-haired recruit at her side. Her dark hair flowed down her back, out of the normal tight braid she wore, soft and straight. It complimented her slightly tanned skin and contrasted beautifully with her bright green eyes. She wore the same plainclothes that the other recruits wore whenever she could get away with it; Josephine struggled to get her into a dress whenever possible – although the times rarely called for them. A hand curled around the curve of her waist and she giggled girlishly, slapping the recruit’s chest gently.

“Herald?” a familiar voice, heavily laced with sleep, preceded the bulk of the Commander out of armor as he emerged from his tent among the recruits.

The men at Evie’s sides snapped to attention, removing their arms from the Herald and lifting a fist over their hearts to stand at the ready for the commander. Evie put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Commander? Did we disturb you?”

“I...was not sleeping well regardless, Your Worship,” the Commander responded, glancing to the recruits at her sides. “It may be best for the recruits to return to their tents, however.”

“Spoilsport,” Evie sighed a little with a smile, waving off the boys to dismiss them as Cullen suggested. “Would you accompany on a walk, then, Commander? If you aren’t sleeping, I mean.”

“I,” he hesitated, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly before he shrugged, “I would be honored to walk you back to your cabin. Let me get my cloak.”

He disappeared briefly and returned with the cloak draped over his arm before he lifted it, “May I? We can’t have you catching a cold.”

She wanted to tell him the alcohol made her warm enough, not to mention the nearness of him, but she accepted his cloak and reveled in the brief contact he made with her as he draped it over her shoulders and fastened the front of it at the base of her throat. He stood at her side briefly before offering her his arm.

“It’s my nameday,” she offered after a moment of silence between them while they walked towards the entrance to Haven.

“Is it, then?” he smiled a little to himself, “I apologize that I did not know.”

“No apology needed, Commander. This will be the most pleasant end I could have asked for.”

Cullen let out a nervous chuckle as he walked her up the stairs and took the left towards the cabin that she slept in. “The recruits can be…fun.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” she responded, offering him a smile. “I quite enjoy your company, Commander.”

“I…you do?”

She shrugged a little, “You’re quite interesting. You…challenge me.”

“I don’t…I hope I do not offend. Earlier, when I questioned your decision-”

Evie cut him off with a laugh and a dismissive twitch of her wrist. “Don’t be silly, Commander. I just told you I appreciate it. Many people simply take what I say at face value. Not you, though. You have your beliefs and you stick to them. It is…refreshing, as of late. I am quite used to people merely nodding and accepting what I have to say, between being noble and now the Herald. I get what I want, Commander, and you put up a fight.”

It was only partially the words she spoke but moreso it was the way she spoke them that sent a shiver down his spine. He took an insinuation that she most definitely intended and let out a stream of breath into the chilled night air as they approached the doorstep for her cabin.

He slid his arm from hers and bowed at the waist, “Happy nameday, Herald. I am…glad that I could…ehh, bring happiness to your evening.”

When he straightened his spine, he caught her eyes. He took in the flush of her cheeks, the purse of her lips, the curve of the cloak he didn’t even register as his own. Heat rose in his own cheeks and he forced himself to look away. “Have a pleasant night, my lady.”

“And you, Commander,” she breathed, bringing herself half a step closer. “I will see you on the morrow.”

And she did. She saw him at every chance she could over the next several days. She would be leaving again soon, after the Chargers returned from their current mission. They would then be going after the Breach, the mages arriving and settling in well within two days of the debacle at Redcliffe.

“Commander,” Evie called as she stood near the door of the Chantry in Haven. Outside, the Elder One and his minions – the _templars_ – were destroying the city. They had managed to save and protect mostif not all of the civilians. Evie’s heart ached for those that had already died. She would not let anyone else fall for her.

Cullen turned back towards her, a frown etched deeply into his features. The scar on his lip tugged at the edge and Evie regretted never reaching out to touch it. Regretted not kissing him on her birthday. Regretted that she was wearing his cloak and that he would lose it.

“I…keep them safe,” she smiled weakly, ducking her head to hide the tears that threatened before she turned with a flourish and headed into the night she believed to be her last.

The first face she saw after waking up was Cullen’s. She was freezing, shaking in his strong arms as he carried her towards the camp that the survivors of Haven had created. She smiled loopily and reached out, running frigid fingers along the curve of his cheek.

“C-cullen?” she croaked, eyes struggling to focus on his features.

Despite his shock, he smiled down at her briefly before he spoke in his low voice. “Do not worry, Herald. You are safe now. You’ve done it. Hold on just a little while longer, we’ll set you to rights in no time.”

She led them to Skyhold with Solas’ help, set everything to rights and rebuilt what they could in the first few days to make it livable. As soon as she had the time, she sought him out.

He distracted for a time but when the chaos broke, she approached him. He spoke of Haven, spoke of the work on Skyhold, spoke on the status of their situation and assured her that most people had survived. He commented on her acceptance of the role of Inquisitor, complimented her.

“I must tell you,” she smiled a little, distractedly toying with a tie on the front of her dress. Josephine had convinced her into more dresses now that she was settled in Skyhold. She hated them but she wished to appease the ambassador’s sensibilities. “I…am relieved that you…that so many made it out of Haven.”

“As…am I,” he responded, eyes locked on hers briefly before he shifted his gaze away. He was silent for a moment before he looked back to her. His voice was quieter, almost reverent. “You…stayed behind. You could have….” He hesitated, shook his head, “I will not allow the events that took place at Haven to happen again. You have my word.”

Evie smiled and took half a step towards him, “And…your cloak, Commander. I have set Josephine to having someone repair it for you. I fear it took some damage during our travels. It will be returned good as new.”

He smiled at her and nodded his head before a recruit approached him, requiring his attention. Evie waved a little before she turned and went about her business.

She spent as much time with him as was possible when she was at Skyhold, although she wasn’t there very often. She was gone on missions more often than not, sealing rifts and gaining favors.

One night in particular, nearing her sixteenth birthday, Varric invited the whole lot of them to the Herald’s Rest for drinks and a card game. A little time to unwind.

Varric led her into the room that the ambassadors and companions were taking up and Cullen lifted a mug in salute, “I found her, Ruffles. Deal her in!”

There was a seat open directly across from Cullen and she took it, not even glancing to see where Varric intended to sit. Josephine and Leliana shared a look but said nothing as the former dealt the hand of Wicked  Grace.

Some of them made comments and finally, Cullen shook his head. “There are certainly enough people. I have about a thousand things to do.”

“Don’t go,” Evie smiled, lifting the mug in front of her and tipping it to him. “We all need a break sometimes, Commander.”

“Yes, losing many can be quite relaxing and habit-forming,” Dorian laughed, raising an eyebrow at the Inquisitor.

Bull called for a start of the game and so Josephine dealt. When the hand came to her, Evie reminded them that she had never played and Varric assured her that she would pick it up in no time.

She had lied. She won the first round.

She threw the second and won the third. She won and won and lost and won and Cullen, a mug and a half in and with a dwindling pile of money in front of him, narrowed his eyes across the table at her.

“Josephine,” he called to the side, eyes on Evie, “deal me in again. Inquisitor, I think I have you right where I want you. I know your tells.”

“Don’t you know,” Josephine smiled, “a lady has no tells.”

Evie giggled and pressed forward a gold piece. “We shall see, Commander.”

“Inky, it’s your turn for a story,” Sera called, raising her mug in the air.

“Oh, I do agree,” Josphine smiled.

“Very well,” Evie waved her hand a little. She was the last in the group to offer one and the tale she spun was one that had them all in tears from laughter, although Josephine seemed more than a little surprised and commented on how it might be necessary to keep it under wraps. Cullen’s eyes shone from across the table at her before he laid down his cards.

Evie grinned and showed hers.

She had won again.

“I…” Cullen started, staring. All that he had left was his armor. He had over-bet.

When he reseated himself at the table, nude, he offered a side-eyed glare at Varric, “…don’t say a word, dwarf.”

“I warned you, Curly,” the shorter man responded with a smirk.

Cassandra excused herself. In fact, everyone did. It left Evie sitting along across from the Commander, whose cheeks were as red as Leliana’s hair.

“You can have your armor,” she purred, leaning over the table. “On three conditions.”

His eyebrows were nearly in his hairline and he swallowed before he nodded. “What might those be, Inquisitor?”

“One, you cannot tell a soul I’m being so forgiving,” she winked at him as she stood, reaching beneath her chair for the clothing he had given her previously before she walked around the table to hand it to him. She kept her eyes on his, although she could see the delicious lines of his bare chest in her periphery. “Two, you have to start calling me Evie.” His face took on a curious appearance at that, a relaxed sort of disbelief. “Three…well, I’ll keep that one a surprise for later.”

“I…” he looked at her with eyes widened, “Thank you, In-…Evie.”

“Of course, Commander,” she winked, folding her arms across her chest. “Enjoy your evening.”

She turned then, flicking her hair over her shoulder before she left him sitting there. She may or may not have emphasized the swing of her hips as she did so.

She swore she heard the softest of groans from behind her and smirked at the sound as she continued on her way back towards her own rooms.

It was months later, before the ball at the Winter Palace but after her birthday, that Evie found herself in the courtyard. From her distance she could see two figures seated at a chess table.

Dorian and Cullen sat there, taking turns as she approached. She heard the tail end of what Cullen was saying before he jumped to his feet with a call of, “Inquisitor!”

“You’re leaving? Does this mean I win?” Dorian asked, settled back in his chair for the moment.

“Please,” Evie smiled, waving her hand over the chessboard, “Don’t stop on my account. I quite enjoy watching two handsome men go at each other.”

Cullen’s expression was one of utter shock, whereas Dorian’s head dropped back and he let out a raucous laugh. “Don’t let our lady ambassador hear you say such things, Evie,” Dorian shook his head with the mirth still in his voice, “…she would get her knickers in a twist, I imagine.”

“Whatever do you mean, Dorian? I most certainly meant while seated at a chessboard. You are _filthy_ ,” she grinned, eyes narrowed in jest at the mage.

The men bantered as Cullen won, at which point he mentioned that he should go back to his duties – before he turned to her and gestured over the table, “Unless you would care to join me?”

“Shall we bet our armor?” she asked with a grin, moving to take the seat across from him. He spluttered a little before she shook her head, “I’m only joking. Although, if you’re amenable…”

“I think it’s best we keep it…out of the betting pools,” he chuckled nervously as he rearranged the pieces. He cleared his throat before he began to tell her about how he learned to play the game. That turned into conversation about his family as she slowly moved the pieces to beat him. She hesitated, though, and changed her tactics. She would let him win. “What about you, my lady?”

“I don’t know that my family would know what to do with me if I went back to them,” she responded with a small smile, “I mean…they fully expected never to really see me again after I joined the Order. Mother would certainly enjoy marrying me off, especially now I suppose. But I quite like the freedom of being here. I would never be allowed this sort of luxury at home.”

“What do you mean?”

“Playing a game with an incredibly handsome, unmarried man without a chaperone.”

Blush colored his cheeks and he laughed a little. “Well, uhh, I suppose it is lucky that we are here then.”

“Indeed it is, Commander,” she moved a piece the opposite direction that would prove useful, shifting a knight to a place that wouldn’t advance her position. “When we have a ball, which I am sure Josephine will insist upon, you should invite your family to attend it. If I may be so bold.”

“I…I appreciate the suggestion, Inquisitor.”

“Evie.”

“Yes,” he smiled, one side of his mouth curled up. “You know…I believe this is the longest we have gone without speaking of the Inquisition or anything related. It is…quite nice.”

“I agree. We should do it more often.”

“…I would like that.”

“Me too.”

And so they did. Whenever they found themselves without too much on their plate, or just enough that they could push off for some time, they played chess and spoke of anything but the Inquisition.

A mere few days before the entourage would leave for Halamshiral, Josephine and Vivienne were busy with Evie in her room ensuring that everything would be perfect. Vivienne insisted that the Inquisitor be up-to-date with the fashions and Josephine quite agreed. Evie insisted that the dress be practical for fighting, as she assumed that there would be quite a lot of it with an assassin on the loose.

This resulted in a corseted dress with a slit up the side so daring, she would either be setting the fashion trends or laughed out of the palace. When the final alterations were made, she was assisted out of the dress and left to her own devices. As Josephine left the room, the Commander passed her on the stairs. He ducked his eyes. When he found the top of the stairs, he saw the Inquisitor seated on her bed beside the finished dress.

“You…wanted to speak to me?” he intoned, glancing from her to the dress that he would no doubt be seeing her in in a few days’ time.

“Yes, Cullen,” she smiled at him as she stood. “What do you think? I had to practically beat them into submission to convince them that it was necessary to be able fight in the damnable thing. You should have seen the first draft they had for me. I looked like a cake.”

Cullen snickered a little at the image, moving closer into the room, standing side by side to her. “It looks…serviceable.”

Evie snorted in a very unladylike manner and turned to look at him with her arms folded across her chest. “Serviceable? Not exactly what I was looking for, Commander.”

“I mean…it looks very nice. I can only imagine what it will look like on you.”

“So you’re imagining me in the dress?” she asked with a grin and a quirked eyebrow. His face colored and he stammered for a minute before she reached her hand out to settle on his fur pauldron. “Relax, Cullen. Although you are quite adorable when you’re flustered.”

“A-…adorable?” he asked with his eyebrows furrowed. “Is that…”

“That’s good,” she smiled, letting her hand slide down the metal on his arm. “Trust me.”

“Was that why you asked me here? To speak of your dress?”

She snorted again, shaking her head. “Not at all. I..uhh…” She moved to stand in front of him rather than at his side, head tilted back to look into his face. “I’ve been meaning to give your cloak back for some time now.”

“Oh…” he let out a breath as she moved away from him and retrieved a folded package from beside the dress on her bed. He watched as she leaned over and he watched the curve of her body in the dress, feeling slightly lecherous but unable to quell his desire to do so. He did not know her age but he knew she was young; could see it in her face and could see the age of those that she spent more time with. Like Sera and Cole. Like the recruits.

She turned around and smiled at the feeling of his eyes on her as she approached him with the tied package in her arms. She held it close to her chest and came quite close to him, head tilted back to look up into his face. “You…you are still coming with us to the Winter Palace, correct?”

He nodded, wincing a little. “Unfortunately.”

“Not so unfortunate,” she responded as she reached up to adjust a piece of his armor that allowed her fingers to brush along his exposed neck. “To see you in the finery of the court will be an interesting change. And I hope the dress will be to your liking.”

“Evie, I,” he began as his fingers curled around the edges of the crinkly brown paper that covered his cloak. “I…look forward to it.”

“Do you dance?” she asked, voice quieter as she moved just a little closer. The package created a barrier between the two of them.

“Rarely,” he spoke in a slightly lower voice.

“…Then that will be the third caveat of returning your armor all those months ago,” the edges of her lips curled upwards and a little moreso at the expression on his face.

“Do you mean that you would like to dance with me? At the Winter Palace, I mean?”

“I would dance with you anywhere, Commander.”

He wanted to kiss her but he didn’t. She wanted him to but she didn’t ask. When he finally agreed to dancing with her at the ball, she begged off to do something that didn’t actually need to be done.

He was dumbstruck when he saw her step into the hall. In fact, he stood simply gazing at her even as she approached. The red of her dress, one that matched the color of his finery, set off her skin in a way that had his blood running hot. It was tight to the hips, tight enough on the legs to give her shape with a slit that made him swallow.

“Cullen?” she breathed, standing close to him. He could hear his blood rushing in his ears, eyes skimming her make-up highlighted features and the length of her exposed neck.

He leaned down, mouth close to her ear. “Please excuse my boldness, Inquisitor, but you are breathtaking.”

Evie dipped her head with a smile and blush in her cheeks before she looked back up at him, “Thank you, Commander. And you look quite impressive. Although you typically do.”

“I…thank you, Inquisitor.”

“Evie,” she corrected with a wink before she curtsied at him and wandered passed him to go about her business for the evening. She checked in with him, among others, throughout the evening while she played a game of subterfuge.

It was Florianne. She could feel it when she first met the woman but needed proof. It was not long before she got it. The Venatori were found out, the Harlequin dealt with. Her dress tore higher but she didn’t notice. Her hair came out in tumbles and she hardly noticed.

Celene remained on the throne, despite what Cullen had originally suggested to her, with Briala’s support. Evie believed love was more important than anything – more to the point, she believed that Gaspard had framed Briala more than the elf had any actual participation in the situation. More than that, though, Evie had stumbled onto some information in the Empress’ Private Quarters that allowed her to blackmail all three of them – although they hadn’t a clue that was what she was doing when she did it, as was her way.

They would form a truce. No more bloodshed. And she would be watching.

When all was said and done, she was dirty and exhausted. She had had enough of the Game and enough of Orlais when Cullen found her on the balcony, the doors closed partially behind her.

“Are you…all right?” the voice was quiet, a lower version than his speaking voice. It made her feel warm all over.

She straightened up and turned to look at him as he approached. “I…yes. Just worn out. It has been a long evening. And all of Josephine’s attentions were for naught.” She frowned a little, gesturing from head to toe at the perfect destruction of her image. Her hair was askew, her make-up smeared. The slit had torn nearly to her hip, the bottom hem of her dress dirtied and torn. Her shoes were gone.

“You still look beautiful,” he offered as he approached her. He set a gloved hand on her bare shoulder, a bruise forming already which he made sure to avoid. “I know it seems foolish, but I…was worried about you tonight.”

“Me?” she smiled at him, lifting a hand to over his. Her daggers had been given to Leliana to take care of. “Should have been more worried about the dress.”

He chuckled at her response as the sound of merriment and music drifted in from the ballroom. He glanced over his shoulder before he offered her his hand with a flourish. “I will likely never get another chance like this. May I have this dance, Evie?”

She tried to keep her grin in check as she curtsied and took his hand. She could feel the warmth of him as she was pulled close to him, his large hand covering the small of her back while his other engulfed hers in line with her shoulder.

Her heart was beating furiously in her chest as she looked up at him, unable to fight the smile from her lips. “Did you mean it?”

“What?”

“When you said I look beautiful,” she asked, breathless.

“Always,” he responded in his low voice, hand on her back pulling her body just a little closer. “You are far too beautiful to be dancing on a balcony with me.”

“What if that’s what I want, though?”

“A lady’s wish,” he smirked, leaning a little closer. His nose brushed lightly over hers and both of them wanted to kill Leliana when she opened the doors, interrupting them to let them know that the Empress wished to speak to Evie again.

The girl groaned inwardly as she felt him pull away from her. Leliana approached her and adjusted her hair a little before she gestured to allow her into the ballroom. The Spymater held back, looking over the Commander who cleared his throat. Leliana could have told him then but, truth be told, the woman didn’t think it mattered. Or that it should, anyway.

The redhead smiled at the curly-haired man before she rejoined the party.

Evie slid into his study amongst a group of recruits, keeping to the shadows against the while wall he spoke. It was some time before he noticed her standing there, at which point his speech faltered. Immediately afterwards, he did his best to hurry things along. When the recruits dispersed, she approached him.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

“You know, I’ve read the letter,” he countered.

She had written him a letter and put it inside the package with the cloak.

“I…wasn’t sure,” she let out a sigh, stopping short of him.

He crossed the room and left only a small bit of space between them.

“You fancy me, do you?” he asked with an eyebrow raised, the opposite side of his mouth quirked up.

“I…yes,” she squeaked out, looking a little afraid as she looked up at him. “Quite a lot.”

“Is that so?” he asked, leaning back against the desk behind him. She moved a little closer, standing just shy of his feet.

She nodded and stepped around his feet so that she was standing over them, her body nearly pressed against his. He reached out and his hand hesitated near her cheek.

“I have imagined myself in this position many times,” he breathed as he straightened up, dropping his hand to her waist and pulling her closer. “What I would say.”

“And yet it has taken us this long to get here?” she spoke quietly with a smile on her face, putting her hands flat across his chest. It was so big. He was so…strong.

“You’re the Inquisitor,” he shook his head a little, lifting his other hand to curve along her neck. “And you are so…Evie, you are so _young_.”

She frowned, curving her fingers into the fabric that covered his chest. “I _am_ the Inquisitor. I have gone from noble daughter to warrior to Herald to Inquisitor in the span of six and a half years. Can my-”

“You’re not even seventeen?” he choked out, his hands dropping from her as he pulled back. He bumped into the desk, eyes widened with surprise.

She groaned.

Of course he would remember her saying she had joined the Order at ten.

“You’re not listening to me, Cullen,” she sighed and followed him, her body pressing against him and trapping him against the desk. “What does any of that matter? I could die any day, any moment. I likely won’t see the end of this war and everyone knows it.”

“Don’t…” he frowned, hand moving back to her cheek. “Don’t say that. You have to live.”

“Why? I’m too young,” she threw back, mocking him.

He frowned, straightening. His hand slid back into her hair while the other moved to her lower back again, holding her tightly against him. “You don’t understand, Evelyn.” His voice was low, strained. “I am not…you are so much better than I am… _brighter_ , Evie. You are a noble, you are _incredible_. You deserve so much more.”

“No,” she shook her head, hands curving around the sides of his neck. “There’s so much more to you than you can see. None of that matters to me.”

“But it does matter,” he sighed, letting go of her and lifting his hands to remove hers from his neck. “I’m sorry. I wish…it was different. That I was different.”

There was nothing she could do. She turned away from him, defeated, and walked into the night. She cried every step along the wall and she never made it to her room that night, opting not to sleep.

They stopped playing chess for a long while, interacted little outside of the War Table.

Until she couldn’t take it anymore.

She found him in his study again, was greeted by a box shattering next to her head. She knew what it was, had seen similar contraptions in the older templars’ quarters while she trained. She bent down, reaching for a broken vial.

“Is this why?” she asked in a quiet voice, pouring what had remained in the vial onto the floor in front of her. “Is this why you turned me away? Why you think I’m too good for you?”

He groaned, rubbing his hand over his face. “Truthfully? It’s part of it.” He then began to regale her with tales of the Ferelden Circle and what happened in Kirkwall, of which she had known some but not from his perspective. He told her of his battle with the addiction since he had left the templars, told her that he wanted to stop it all. Told her of his nightmares.

“You’re a fool, Cullen,” she sighed, crossing the space between them. She set a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a fool to think that any of that matters, that it changes how I feel about you. Do you think I couldn’t understand because I’m young?”

“No, I think you deserve someone that isn’t so…broken,” he groaned, dropping his head.

She shook her head and moved her hand to his chin, turning his face towards hers. “You’re not broken, Cullen. You’re the strongest man I’ve ever met. The most… _incredible_ …” She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I hate that we’ve fallen apart. I hate not seeing you, I hate not spending time with you. You are _good_ for me, Cullen. You challenge me, you make me better. And I want to make you better too. Please, don’t push me away again.”

“You’re just….” He groaned, turning and looking into her eyes as she lifted her head from his shoulder. She shifted and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He rested his chin atop her head as she nestled against him, arms held between their chests. “I don’t expect anything from you, Evie. I need you to know that. I won’t…I won’t push you away but I need you to know that every step in this will be up to you. I won’t put any pressure on you. But you’re right.” He tilted his head down and kissed the top of her head, “It’s been…terrible not being able to spend time with you. I’ve missed you.”

“You don’t have to,” she removed her head from beneath his, tilting it back to look up at him. “And if it’s up to me…I would really like a kiss.”


	8. Elastic Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders/fem!Mage Hawke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No sex, some violence.

“There can be no half measures,” and the glow receded from his person.

She felt sick.

“Anders...” she whispered, “What have you done?”

“There can be no turning back,” he frowned, his back to Hawke.

And the world shook.

Hawke collapsed to the cobblestones, the pain of impact shoot from her knees upwards. It didn’t matter. She was numb.

“Oh, Anders,” she shook her head as Aveline helped her to stand. She faced the Knight-Commander and Orsino, sided with the mages because she had to. None of it mattered, though.

Orsino left her to deal with Anders.

To deal with Anders.

She turned to find him seated, waiting for her blade, on a crate.  She conjured a ball of fire in her hand and turned on her companions.

“I don’t care what you believe. Not a damn one of you will harm him. If you have a problem with it, you can take it up with me.”

Her voice was a growl. Animalistic. So unlike her normal, jovial tone.

She flicked her wrist and the fireball dissipated as she moved over to him. She pulled the blade from her belt and held it, bending at the knees and coming face-to-face with the man she loved more than anything. The man that had been there for her through everything, practically from the beginning of her time in Kirkwall. The man that _understood_.

The man that betrayed her.

Tears were in her eyes as she pressed the blade to his throat, her jaw clenching. Working as she tried to find the words.

“Anders.”

He shifted his eyes to hers, defeat etched in every one of his features.

“Anders. What…” she stopped, shaking her head. She groaned, lowering the knife and resting her forehead against his. She closed her eyes against the tears that fell. “How could you do this?”

“Vengeance,” he whispered, “I couldn’t control him. I can’t. You have to. You have to kill me, my love.”

Her blood froze like ice in her veins and she felt the bile rise in her throat at the idea of it.

“Do not blame your spirit,” Sebastian spat and Hawke whirled on him, throwing a fireball that narrowly missed his head. He called, “Hawke!” in surprise.

“I will not miss again,” she spoke in the same growl she had used before. “You will hold your tongue or you will lose it, you ungrateful piece of Chantry filth. I don’t have time for your petty anger.”

Sebastian was chomping at the bit but stiffened and remained in his position.

Hawke’s shoulders dropped and she turned her attention back to Anders.

“You _want_ me to kill you?”

“You should have the first time we met,” he frowned, lifting a hand to ghost it over her cheek. She lifted her own hand and covered his, pressing his skin into hers. “I have twisted and contorted Justice into this terrible monster. I destroyed so many innocent lives…there must have been another way.”

“There _is_ ,” she cried, the hand with the knife going behind his head to hold him close. “You can come with me. We can fight this together. Fix this _together_.”

Anders shook his head, using his hands to remove hers from his body. “I can’t, Hawke. I don’t deserve it. I can’t control him. I can’t…I don’t know if I ever will be able to. If you kill me, at least Justice can be freed.”

He wanted to die. He wanted her to kill him.

He had killed _so many innocent people_.

He had started a war.

And he wanted to die.

 She stood, staring at the short dagger in her hand. She sighed heavily, inhaled, exhaled. Closing her hand around the hilt of the knife she bent down to look into his face again.

“Did you ever love me?”

“Always,” he responded, her tears reflected in his eyes.

With her empty hand she tipped his chin up and pressed her lips to his, her tears mingling with his on their cheeks.

And she pressed the dagger beneath his ribcage, the way Isabela had shown her. Anders gasped into her mouth and after a moment she could taste his blood on her tongue. His body went slack and she pulled her hand back, arms going around to catch him as he fell forward. He collapsed onto her and she fell backwards onto the hard ground, holding him as his body shifted.

Hawke let out a wail, pulling the dagger from him and cradling his face in her hands as she kissed his face over and over, alternating between “I love you” and “I’m sorry” until Varric and Aveline pulled her away to head towards the Gallows.


End file.
